Kuwait announced this week that it will print thousands of copies of the Quran in Swedish to be distributed in the Nordic country, calling it an effort to educate the Swedish people on Islamic “values of coexistence.” The plan was announced after the desecration of a Quran during a one-man anti-Islam protest that Swedish police authorized in Stockholm last month.
Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah said the Public Authority for Public Care would print and distribute 100,000 translated copies of the Muslim holy book in Sweden, to “affirm the tolerance of the Islamic religion and promote values of coexistence among all human beings,” according to the country’s state news agency Kuna.
On June 28, Salwan Momika, a 37-year-old Iraqi Christian who had sought asylum in Sweden on religious grounds, stood outside the Stockholm Central Mosque and threw a copy of the Quran into the air and burned some of its pages.
The stunt came on the first day of Eid-al-Adha, one of the most important festivals on the Islamic calendar, and it triggered anger among Muslims worldwide. Protests were held in many Muslim nations, including Iraq, where hundreds of angry demonstrators stormed the Swedish embassy compound.
CBS News sought comment from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Kuwaiti government’s announcement, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.
The U.S. State Department condemned the desecration of the Quran in Stockholm, but said Swedish authorities were right to authorize the small protest where it occurred.
“We believe that demonstration creates an environment of fear that will impact the ability of Muslims and members of other religious minority groups from freely exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief in Sweden,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. “We also believe that issuing the permit for this demonstration supports freedom of expression and is not an endorsement of the demonstration’s actions.”
The United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution Wednesday condemning the burning of the Quran as an act of religious hatred. The U.S. and a handful of European nations voted against the resolution, which was introduced by Pakistan on behalf of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), arguing that it contradicts their perspectives on human rights and freedom of expression.
The man who burned the quran literally had his family tortured to death by muslims in Iraq
He’s free to burn the garbage as many times as he wises
Weird how all you people don’t even care about that part of this story
If I had relatives killed by extremist Jews (yeah, yeah, just hear me out), would it be okay for me to promote Nazi ideology and idolize the Holocaust? Hate is wrong in every circumstance.
What ideology did he promote?
Being against Judaism is not the same as being a Nazi whatsoever, so your analogy is just incorrect on a fundamental level. And frankly, it’s so obvious that it feels like a bad faith argument.
And yes, if you had relatives killed by jewish (religion, not ethnicity) people justified by their religion, it would be completely in your right to burn their religious text.
Hell, you’re in your right to go burn any religious texts you want without a reason. (Not recommended in Islamic countries, might lead to a severe case of a death penalty).
This is burned paper, though. Not quite the same as advocating for burned people. We shouldn’t give human rights to any book. If someone wanted to burn a book they should be free to do so for any reason as long as it’s their book, I guess.
Also, if this would have been a Torah or a Bible used in this demonstration, we wouldn’t even have heard about it, because Muslims seem to be the only ones willing to kill someone for burning paper.
Promote Nazis? No. Burn Tora? Yes.
This is very much tarring all Muslims with the same brush, no?
Like I’m not denying he has the right to burn the quran if he wants.
But to insist that the actions of some Muslims justify hatred towards all of them is deplorable.
Swedes pilling up Qurans for the winter to save on wood in 1, 2…
I wish there’s a similar reaction if one woman is raped or degraded, one gay person beaten or oppressed, one child molested, one dictator suppresses a population or one politician decides against environment, reason and humanity and for greed. But no, a fkn book was burnt. What would Mohammed say about that if he’d live today, hm?
He’d say “don’t care, I have 9 year olds to rape”.
