Daily Times

Middle East powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Iran have summoned Swedish diplomats to denounce Stockholm’s permission for protests that desecrate the Quran on free speech grounds. The separate moves by both majority-Muslim countries, announced in statements late Thursday, came amid heightened tensions between Sweden and Iraq over a Sweden-based Iraqi refugee who last month burnt pages of the Muslim religious text outside Stockholm’s main mosque. In the latest such incident on Thursday, the refugee, Salwan Momika, stepped on the Quran but did not burn it, triggering renewed condemnations and calls for protest across the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest sites, said it would hand the Swedish charge d’affaires “a protest note that includes the kingdom’s request to the Swedish authorities to take all immediate and necessary measures to stop these disgraceful acts”, according to a foreign ministry statement. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said Sweden’s ambassador to Tehran had been called in to censure the permit granted to Momika’s protest and to warn Stockholm of the consequences of such actions.