Saudi Arabia summons Swedish ambassador over Qur’an desecration

Saudi Arabia has summoned Sweden’s ambassador to Riyadh in protest at the desecration of the holy Qur’an in the European country, which sparked widespread criticism across the Islamic world.

The Swedish diplomat was summoned by the Foreign Ministry on Sunday after an Iraqi immigrant publicly burned a copy of the Qur’an outside a Stockholm mosque last week, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

Riyadh urged Stockholm to “stop all actions that directly contradict international efforts seeking to spread the values of tolerance, moderation, and rejection of extremism, and undermine the necessary mutual respect for relations between peoples and states,” the agency said.

Saudi Arabia has already denounced the blasphemous move.

On Wednesday, Salwan Momika, a 37-year-old Iraqi immigrant stomped on the Qur’an before setting several pages alight in front of Stockholm’s largest mosque. The insult to the Muslims' holy book was made under the authorization and protection of the Swedish police.

The incident, coinciding with the start of the Islamic occasion of Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) and the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, drew the anger of Muslims from across the world.

Following the incident, several thousand Iraqis gathered near the Swedish embassy in Baghdad in protest against the Qur’an burning and demanded the expulsion of the ambassador.

People in other Muslim countries also took to the streets in protest against the move. In Iran, people held a demonstration outside Sweden’s embassy in Tehran on Friday.

Iran, Iraq, the UAE, Kuwait, and a number of other countries have also voiced diplomatic protest against the Swedish government’s authorization of the Qur’an desecration.

ME