The Extraordinary Meeting of the Executive Committee of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), convened in Jeddah today, to discuss the repercussions of the burning of a copy of the Quran in Sweden on the first day of Eid Al-Adha.
The session was held at the invitation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the chairman of the current session of the Islamic Summit, and the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC),
The Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the OIC, Dr. Saleh bin Hamad Al-Suhaibani, expressed high appreciation for the active attendance of the meeting to discuss the blatant provocative actions and the repeated despicable acts of attacking the sanctity of the Quran in Sweden.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia expresses its strong condemnation and denunciation of these repeated despicable acts and stresses that these hateful acts cannot be accepted under any justification as they clearly incite hatred, exclusion, and racism and violate divine laws and all decisions of international references and covenants”, he said.
“The Kingdom calls for harmony, peace, and rapprochement. These acts directly contradict international efforts seeking to spread the values of tolerance, moderation, and rejection of extremism, and undermine the principles of mutual respect necessary for relations among the peoples and states.”
“In this regard, the Kingdom stresses the need to take decisive measures by the international community and the OIC to prevent the recurrence of these practices that do not belong to human values and moral principles”.
“Such blatant actions will only lead to more fanaticism and extremism, spreading hatred and violence and sowing strife at a time when people are in dire need of acquaintance, rapprochement, and harmony”.
“The Kingdom affirms the responsibility of those countries to prevent the recurrence of calls for incitement and hate crimes and to stand firmly against these provocative practices,” Dr. Al-Suhaibani said.
He added that Saudi Arabia hopes that the OIC member states would help activate the role of the Islamophobia Observatory and support it, by all means, to be able to perform its tasks in the best possible manner.
The Secretary General of the OIC, Hissein Brahim Taha, delivered a speech during which he called on the member states to take unified and collective measures to prevent the recurrence of incidents of desecration of copies of the Holy Quran and insult against Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him.
“We stress the need to send a clear message that acts of desecration of copies of the Holy Quran and insults against our Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, are not just ordinary Islamophobia incidents. We must send constant reminders to the international community regarding the urgent application of international law, which clearly prohibits any advocacy of religious hatred.”, he said.
Source: Bahrain News Agency