Tag: Quran desecration

  • Peshawar: Mob protesting Quran desecration attacks police station

    Peshawar: Mob protesting Quran desecration attacks police station

    A riled-up mob in Peshawar protesting against the alleged desecration of the Holy Quran attacked a police station in an attempt to punish the man already booked on the same charges.

    Several policemen, including a senior officer at Khazana police station in the Charsadda Road area, resultantly suffered injuries. 

    Dawn reports that nearly 2,000 people attacked the police station and clashed with the cops as they were demanding the custody of a man who was already arrested for allegedly desecrating the Holy Quran during a domestic fight.

    The report also quotes a police official who stated that the mobsters damaged the main gate of the police station and pelted stones on the premises.

    The police resorted to tear gas shelling and aerial gunfire to disperse the mob in response. 

    An FIR has been registered against the mob. 

    The violent protest led to the closure of the major Charsadda Road, which connects Peshawar with the Charsadda district and creates inconvenience for thousands of commuters. 

    The city police’s official statement informed the media that the desecration incident took place in the Riaz Ghari area under the jurisdiction of the Khazana police station.

    The accused was immediately taken into custody and shifted to the police station for interrogation by the police. 

    The officials detailed that police resorted to tear gas shelling and aerial gunfire to disperse the mob as a large number of locals had taken to the streets and blocked the Charsadda Road while suspending traffic. 

    The superintendent of police (rural division), Inam Jan and several officials suffered injuries during the stone pelting by miscreants.

    A team of higher-ups of the city police headed by Peshawar SSP (operation) Kashif Zulfiqar held talks with the local elders and religious leaders in a bid to persuade mobsters to disperse peacefully.

    The protesters took leave after the police assured them of legal action against the alleged desecration of the Quran. 

    The police claimed that no loss of life was reported during the protest as a result of their “good strategy.”

    The police also pledged to prosecute mobsters under the relevant laws while acknowledging that there are also reports of protesters suffering injuries, but their number is not known.

  • Sweden charges Quran burners with hate crime

    Sweden charges Quran burners with hate crime

    Swedish prosecutors on Wednesday charged two men with inciting ethnic hatred over several protests involving the burning of Qurans in 2023, which sparked widespread outrage in Muslim countries.

    Salwan Momika, a Christian Iraqi who burned the Quran at a slew of protests, and co-protester Salwan Najem were charged with “agitation against an ethnic group” on four occasions in the summer of 2023.

    “Both men are prosecuted for having on these four occasions made statements and treated the Quran in a manner intended to express contempt for Muslims because of their faith,” senior prosecutor Anna Hankkio said in a statement.

    According to the charge sheet, the duo desecrated the Quran, including burning it, while making derogatory remarks about Muslims — in one case, outside a Stockholm mosque.

    “In my opinion, the men’s statements and actions fall under the provisions on agitation against an ethnic or national group, and it is important that this matter is tried in court,” the prosecutor added.

    Relations between Sweden and several Middle Eastern countries were strained by the pair’s protests.

    Iraqi protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad twice in July 2023, starting fires within the compound on the second occasion.

    In August last year, Sweden’s intelligence service Sapo raised its threat level to four on a scale of five after the Koran burnings had made the country a “prioritised target”.

    The Swedish government condemned the desecrations while noting the country’s constitutionally protected freedom of speech and assembly laws.

    Earlier this month, prosecutors charged Swedish-Danish right-wing activist Rasmus Paludan with the same crime over a 2022 protest in the southern city of Malmo, which also included burning the Koran.

    In October 2023, a Swedish court convicted a man of inciting ethnic hatred with a 2020 Quran burning, the first time the country’s court system had tried the charge for desecrating Islam’s holy book.

    Prosecutors have previously said that under Swedish law, the burning of a Quran can be seen as a critique of the book and the religion and thus be protected under free speech.

    However, depending on the context and statements made at the time, it can also be considered “agitation against an ethnic group.”