Saudi Arabia Joins Emergency Discussion with UN Over Quran Burning
- Middle East Eye
Saudi Arabia – The foreign minister from Saudi Arabia, Prince Faisal bin Farhan has told the United Nations (UN) on Tuesday, there can be no justification for the burning of the Quran in Sweden, warning that it fuels extremism and racism, while contradicting values of tolerance.
"The Kingdom's government affirms the necessity of consolidating the values of dialogue, tolerance, and respect and rejecting everything that would spread hatred and extremism," Prince Faisal stated.
“The Kingdom’s government strongly condemns the extremists’ burning of copies of the Holy Qur’an and affirms that these reprehensible acts cannot be accepted with any justification, as they incite hatred, exclusion, and racism. They directly contradict the international efforts to spread the values of tolerance, moderation, and rejection of extremism,” he added, as reported fom Arab News site.
Protes pembakaran Al Quran
- Al Jazeera
The foreign minister added that there could be no justification for the burning, saying it contradicted the values of tolerance, moderation, and the rejection of extremism.
Prince Faisal emphasized that all international condemnations and rejection of these acts were evidence that the international community and organizations must act to stop such offensive events taking place.
Prince Faisal said Saudi Arabia looks forward to adopting the draft resolution presented on “Combating religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence” by consensus.
The Saudi foreign minister also congratulated the ambassador of the Czech Republic on his election as president of the UN Human Rights Council for the current year, wishing him success in his new duties.
On July 1, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation announced that it will hold an emergency meeting of its executive committee in Jeddah to discuss the consequences of the burning of the Quran.
The meeting discussed measures to be taken against this heinous act and adopted a collective position on the necessary course of action.
Salwan Momika, 37, a refugee from Iraq, desecrated the Qur’an and set fire to its pages in front of Stockholm’s largest mosque on Eid Al-Adha.
Momika’s desecration of the holy text sparked outrage with videos circulating through social media, with the OIC, multiple countries’ governments and ambassadors condemning the actions.
At the end of his speech to the UN, Prince Faisal stressed the importance of freedom of expression being a moral value that spreads respect and coexistence among peoples, not a tool to spread hatred and cultural and civilizational clashes, pointing to the need to spread the values of tolerance and moderation and to reject all forms of hatred, violence, and extremism.
