ISLAMABAD/JEDDAH   -    The Organisation of Islamic Co­operation has decided to con­vene an emergency open meet­ing of the Executive Committee next week to discuss the burn­ing of the Holy Quran in Sweden.

The meeting will be held in Jed­dah to discuss the measures to be taken against the heinous act and to adapt a collective position on the necessary course of action. Earlier, in a press release, the Gen­eral Secretariat had condemned the recurrence of these despicable attacks and attempts to violate the sanctity of the Holy Quran.

The intergovernmental organ­isation of 57 countries said in a statement that the meeting had been called by Saudi Arabia in its capacity as chair of the Islam­ic Summit Conference and would take place at the OIC headquarters in the Saudi city of Jeddah. The emer­gency meeting would also go over the procedures for dealing with the fall­out from the incident, it added.

In a conversation with the Secre­tary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Hissein Brahim Taha, Iranian Foreign Minis­ter Hossein Amir-Abdollahian called for an emergency meeting of the for­eign ministers of the OIC in light of the recent act of blasphemy of burn­ing the Quran in outside a Mosque in Sweden. “The OIC foreign ministers should hold the meeting at the earli­est possible time to address the dese­cration,” Amirabdollahian said.

Amir-Abdollahian pointed out that the OIC meeting can be made concur­rently with the Ministerial Meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement in Baku, Azerbai­jan, on July 5-6. Meanwhile, Pakistan, too, strongly condemned the “despi­cable act”, stressing that “such wilful incitement to discrimination, hated and violence cannot be justified un­der the pretext of freedom of expres­sion and protest”. “The recurrence of such Islamophobic incidents during the last few months in the West calls into serious question the legal frame­work which permits such hate-driv­en actions. “We reiterate that the right to freedom of expression and opinion does not provide a license to stoke hatred and sabotage inter-faith harmony,” the Foreign Office said in a statement on Thursday.

It further stated that Pakistan’s con­cerns about the incident were be­ing conveyed to Sweden and urged the international community and the national governments to undertake “credible and concrete measures to prevent the rising incidents of xeno­phobia, Islamophobia and anti-Mus­lim hatred”. Separately, a statement is­sued by the president’s office termed the incident “painful”. It said the act had “deeply hurt the sentiments of billions of Muslims, [and] every state must take measures for the preven­tion of such Islamophobic acts”.

The European Union Saturday joined several Muslim nations in con­demning the latest incident of des­ecration of the Holy Quran in Swe­den. The censure comes after a man, who fled from Iraq to Sweden sever­al years ago, tore up and burned the Holy Quran outside Stockholm’s cen­tral mosque on Wednesday— the first day of Eidul Azha in the country. He has been charged by Swedish po­lice with agitation against an ethnic or national group and a violation of a ban on fires that has been in place in Stockholm since mid-June.

The act has drawn strong criti­cism from several countries, includ­ing Pakistan, Turkiye, Jordan, Pales­tine, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iraq and Iran. In its condemnation issued to­day, the EU said the act of burning the Holy Quran or any other holy book was “offensive, and disrespectful and a clear act of provocation.” “Manifes­tations of racism, xenophobia and related intolerance have no place in Europe,” Nabila Massrali, the EU spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, said in a statement.

“The EU joins the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in its strong rejection of the burning of a [copy of the Holy] Quran by an individual in Sweden. This act in no way reflects the opinions of the European Union.” She added, “It is even more deplorable that such an act was carried out on the important Mus­lim celebration of Eidul Azha.”