TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsUN rights council to discuss Quran burning
The United Nations Human Rights Council would hold an urgent session to address the burning of the Quran following an incident in Stockholm that sparked global outrage, a spokesman said on Tuesday.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
T
he United Nations Human Rights Council would hold an urgent session to address the burning of the Quran following an incident in Stockholm that sparked global outrage, a spokesman said on Tuesday.
A Quran was burnt outside the Swedish capital’s main mosque on Wednesday, triggering a diplomatic backlash across the Muslim world.
Salwan Momika, 37, who fled from Iraq to Sweden several years ago, stomped on Islam’s holy book and set several pages alight as Muslims around the world began marking the Eid al-Adha holiday as the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia drew to a close.
The Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, which is in session until July 14, will change its agenda to stage an urgent debate following a request from Pakistan.
“The UN Human Rights Council will hold an urgent debate to ‘discuss the alarming rise in premeditated and public acts of religious hatred, as manifested by the current desecration of the holy Quran in some European and other countries’,” council spokesman Pascal Sim told reporters, citing the wording of the request.
“This urgent debate will be convened following a request of Pakistan, sent on behalf of several members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, including those that are members of the Human Rights Council.
“The urgent debate will most likely be convened this week at a date and time to be determined by the bureau of the Human Rights Council that is meeting today.”
There are 47 members of the Human Rights Council. The UN’s top rights body is currently in the second of its three regular sessions per year.
Previously, Pope Francis said the burning of the Quran had made him angry and disgusted, and that he condemned and rejected permitting the act as a form of freedom of speech.
“Any book considered holy should be respected to respect those who believe in it,” the pope said in an interview published on Monday in the United Arab Emirates newspaper Al Ittihad. “I feel angry and disgusted at these actions.
“Freedom of speech should never be used as a means to despise others, and allowing that is rejected and condemned.”
On Sunday, an Islamic grouping of 57 states said collective measures were needed to prevent acts of desecration to the Quran, and international law should be used to stop religious hatred.
