European Muslims condemn Koran burning in Sweden, Netherlands
The European Muslim Forum (EMF) has condemned recent incidents in Europe involving the burning of Islam’s holy book, the Koran – actions that have drawn global condemnation from Turkey and the wider Muslim world in the past week.
“Some elements in Europe intend to create a second battlefield on the continent,” said Abdul-Wakhed Niyazov, head of the EMF, speaking at a press conference in the Turkish metropolis of Istanbul on Wednesday.
“European Muslims are expressing their presence and their role in Europe is growing. These provocations are trying to reduce their role in Europe,” Niyazov told reporters.
He praised President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for being “the most vocal” in condemning the desecration of the holy book, saying: “We hope other countries would also react. Most people condemned these actions but they were not effective.”
“If the Muslim world had reacted and supported Türkiye, then this issue would have been resolved quickly,” he added.
Niyazov argued that the European system is behind such incidents but not the people who carry them out, and held the Swedish, Danish and Dutch governments responsible for the demonstrations.
“In many European countries, anti-Semitism is considered a crime but Islamophobia falls under ‘freedom of expression.'” This is a double standard, he said, noting that “change is a must.”
“We are against the burning of any religious book. I cannot imagine a Muslim carrying out such an act. We, as Muslims, will always be against such acts of desecration,” he stressed.
Over the past three weeks, the Muslim world has been outraged by the desecration of its holy book in Western Europe, with Türkiye calling Paludan an “Islam-hating charlatan” and strongly condemning the permission and protection by the authorities for the provocative act which it said, “clearly constitutes a hate crime.”
After burning a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on January 21, with both police protection and permission from Swedish authorities, Swedish-Danish extremist Rasmus Paludan repeated his provocation a week later in front of a mosque in Denmark.
He announced that he would burn a copy of the holy book every Friday until Sweden joins the NATO alliance. Sweden’s bid for NATO membership faces an impasse as ties span Stockholm’s failure to curb anti-Türkiye propaganda by far-right politicians and supporters of terrorist organizations such as the PKK and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ).
Not two days after Paludan, another far-right radical, Edwin Wagensveld, the leader of the Islamophobic group Pegida, tore out and burned pages of the Koran in the Dutch capital.
Erdoğan particularly condemned the incidents, noting: “Did they wipe out Islam by burning our Koran? … They just showed how unworthy they are. Denmark did the same.”