UN: Qur’an-burnings aimed at dividing communities
The United Nations said hate speech was on the rise everywhere, as the UN Human Rights Council held an urgent debate Tuesday to address recent desecration of Muslims’ holy book, Qur’an , in Sweden.
These appear tailor-made to inflame anger and divide communities, the UN human rights chief Volker Turk said as he opened the debate at the UN’s top rights body in Geneva, AFP reported.
A copy of Qur’an was burnt outside the Swedish capital’s main mosque on June 28, triggering a diplomatic backlash across the Muslim world.
Pakistan and other nations called for a discussion of “the alarming rise in premeditated and public acts of religious hatred as manifested by recurrent desecration of the Holy Qur’an in some European and other countries.”
Turk said recent Qur’an-burning incidents “appear to have been manufactured to express contempt and inflame anger; to drive wedges between people; and to provoke, transforming differences of perspective into hatred and, perhaps, violence”.
He said that irrespective of the law or personal belief, “people need to act with respect for others”.
He said hate speech needed to be combated through dialogue, education, raising awareness and inter-faith engagement.
“Powered by the tidal forces of social media, and in a context of increasing international and national discord and polarisation, hate speech of every kind is rising, everywhere,” Turk said.
“It is harmful to individuals, and it damages the social cohesion necessary to the sound functioning of all societies.” Salwan Momika, 37, who fled from Iraq to Sweden several years ago, stomped on the Muslim holy book and set several pages alight in Stockholm.
The Swedish government condemned the Qur’an burning as “Islamophobic”, but added that Sweden had a “constitutionally-protected right to freedom of assembly, expression and demonstration”.