Bangladesh condemns desecration of Quran in Netherlands, Sweden

Dhaka, Jan 26 (EFE).- Bangladesh Thursday strongly condemned the desecration of the Holy Quran by a far-right activist in The Hague, urging all concerned to put an end to such unwarranted provocations and Islamophobia.

The leader of the far-right Pegida movement in the Netherlands, Edwin Wagensveld, tore pages out of a copy of the Quran on Sunday near the Dutch parliament and stomped on them.

“Bangladesh strongly condemns the recent act of desecrating the Holy Quran by a far-right activist in The Hague,” a foreign ministry statement said.

“Bangladesh expresses grave concern over such heinous incident and rejects any act of insulting the sacred values and religious symbols of the Muslims – for that matter of all religions – all over the world under any circumstances,” the ministry said.

The ministry earlier on Jan.22 condemned the act of burning the Holy Quran by a far-right activist in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.

Far-right demonstrators burned a copy of Quran and chanted anti-Muslim slogans in front of Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, on Saturday, prompting protests and condemnation from the Muslim world.

Bangladesh is a predominately Muslim country where nearly 90 percent of its 170 million people follow the religion.

Thousands of Muslims demonstrated in Dhaka in 2020 in protest of French President Emmanuel Macron’s allegedly anti-Islam remarks in defending blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad.

Protest last year demanded the arrest and punishment of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members for their controversial remarks on Prophet Muhammad, the most revered figure in Islam.

EFE

am-ssk