Protests against Quran burning held across the Middle East

Angry protesters in several Middle Eastern countries have gathered to denounce the recent desecration of Islam’s holy book by far-right activists in Sweden and the Netherlands

In the Iranian capital of Tehran, hundreds of people marched after Friday prayers during which they burned a Swedish flag. 

In Beirut, about 200 angry protesters burned the flags of Sweden and the Netherlands outside the blue-domed Mohammed Al-Amin mosque at Beirut’s central Martyrs Square. 

Small protests over the Quran burning also took place in Bahrain, a small island nation in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this month, Rasmus Paludan, a far-right activist from Denmark, received permission from police to stage a protest outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm where he burned the Quran. Days later, Edwin Wagensveld, Dutch leader of the far-right Pegida movement in the Netherlands, tore pages out of a copy of the Quran near the Dutch Parliament and stomped on them.

The moves angered millions of Muslims around the world and triggered protests.

Iraq’s powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr asked in comments released Friday whether freedom of speech means offending other people’s beliefs. He asked why “doesn’t the burning of the gays’ rainbow flag represent freedom of expression.” 

The cleric added that burning the Quran “will bring divine anger.” Hundreds of his supporters gathered outside a mosque in Baghdad waving copies of the Quran. 

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