Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Ayman Safadi, on Monday participated in the 18th special meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)’s Council of Foreign Ministers. The session, held via teleconference, aimed at discussing the repeated desecration and burning of copies of the Holy Quran in Sweden and Denmark. “(We are conveying) a clear and direct message that we refuse to offend our religious symbols, and we condemn the burning of copies of the Holy Quran, and attempts to offend it are hate crimes that must be prevented from recurring,” Safadi said in the meeting. He added that respecting religious symbols and sanctities is a universal human value, and a necessity to consolidate a culture of respect for others. He emphasized that insulting the Holy Quran is an incitement to hatred, a rejection of the other, a consecration of Islamophobia, and a crude provocation of the feelings of about two billion Muslims that cannot, in any way, be justified in the context of freedom of expression. Safadi called for “taking immediate actions to criminalize and prevent insulting religious sanctities” to stop extremists from spreading an agenda of hatred and racism, which poses a threat to all societies.
Source: Jordan News Agency