The Iraqi Foreign Ministry on Monday condemned repeated burnings of the Koran outside its embassy in Denmark. A Copenhagen-based far-right movement named Danske Patrioter is believed to be behind it and again posted video of a man desecrating and burning what appears to be a Koran and stomping on an Iraqi flag on its Facebook page.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry on Monday condemned the repeated burnings of the Koran outside its embassy in Denmark, after a second such event organized in Copenhagen by a far-right movement. On its Facebook page, the far-right Danske Patrioter movement again posted a video on Monday of a man desecrating and burning what appears to be a Koran and trampling on an Iraqi flag, after a similar initiative was first organized on Friday. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemns, strongly and once again, the repetition of the burning of a copy of the Holy Quran in front of the Iraqi Embassy in Denmark,” according to a statement released Monday.
Such acts allow “the virus of extremism and hatred” to pose “a real threat to the peaceful coexistence of societies”, according to the press release. The spokesman for Iraqi diplomacy, Ahmed al-Sahhaf, for his part specified in a press release that “the staff of the diplomatic mission of Denmark left Iraqi territory two days ago”. After the first event reported Friday in Denmark, nearly a thousand demonstrators gathered Saturday night in Baghdad. These supporters of the influential religious leader Moqtada Sadr had tried to march towards the Danish embassy, but the Iraqi police had dispersed them with truncheons and tear gas.
“No link with freedom of expression”
These same Sadrist supporters set fire to the Swedish embassy in the Iraqi capital on July 20, in reaction to two events in Stockholm during which the Koran was desecrated by an Iraqi refugee. The Iraqi government then announced the expulsion of the Swedish ambassador, blaming the Stockholm authorities for the permissions issued by the police for the holding of such gatherings. The Swedish police say they allowed such events in the name of freedom of assembly, assuring that this did not mean that they approved. On Monday in Baghdad, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Chia al-Soudani also received ambassadors from EU countries.
Referring to these desecrations, Mr. Soudani considered that they had “no link with freedom of expression, calling on the countries of the European Union (…) to fight against these racist acts and all those who incite violence”, according to a press release.