OIC Foreign Ministers Strongly Condemn Blatant Attacks on Holy Quran

On 31 July, Mohamed Salem Ould Merzoug, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation, and Mauritanians Abroad, chaired, via visioconference, the 18th extraordinary session of the Council of Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) devoted to discussing the repeated desecrations of copies of the Holy Quran in Sweden and Denmark.

The session, which was convened at the invitation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Chairman of the 14th Islamic Summit and the Republic of Iraq, examined ways of responding collectively to the growing repeated provocations of Muslim feelings by burning and desecrating the Holy Qur’an under the pretext of freedom of expression with the public permission of the two States.

At the end of the session, the Ministers adopted a resolution in which they:

• Strongly condemn the repetition of flagrant attacks on the sanctity of the Holy Qur’an;
• Consider the failure of Sweden and Denmark to take measures to prevent the recurrence of this crime as contrary to the Security Council Resolution of 14 June 2023 on tolerance, international peace, and security;
• Send an OIC delegation to the Commission of the European Union to inform it of the condemnation of the Member States for the crime of desecration of the Holy Quran and request them to ensure that this heinous act is not repeated;
• Call upon the ambassadors of the OIC Member States and their missions in various countries and international bodies to undertake a broad diplomatic campaign to explain and defend the position of the Islamic States in this regard by all available legal means;
• Request Member States to consider the political, economic, and cultural measures they deem appropriate against States that insult the Holy Qur’an and Islamic symbols;
• Call on the OIC Secretary General to accelerate the implementation of the Action Plan adopted by Member States to combat Islamophobia and implement the recommendation for the appointment of a Special Envoy on Islamophobia;
• Request the UN Secretary-General to appoint a special rapporteur on Islamophobia.

On the other hand, the Ministers issued a statement on the incursion of officials of the Israeli occupation Government into the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, and in this regard strongly condemned the recurrence of such incursions, reaffirming that the city of Al-Quds al-Sharif, the capital of the State of Palestine, is an integral part of the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967.

They warned of the consequences of ongoing provocations and attacks on religious sanctities in grave breach of international law.

They called for intensifying efforts at the level of international organizations and taking the necessary measures to compel Israel to stop all its violations and illegal measures in the occupied territory, including Al-Quds al-Sharif.