ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s popular Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Saturday said he is ready for dialogue with the “advocates of freedom and peace” Denmark and Sweden after the former introduced a draft bill that seeks to ban burning the Quran.
Sadr last month amassed hundreds of his supporters before the Swedish and Danish embassies in Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone after Quran-burning events were held in the Scandinavian countries. The protesters set fire to the Swedish embassy and forced the diplomatic representations of both countries to withdraw from the buildings.
As resentment and unrest from Islamic nations grew in both countries, the Danish government on Friday presented a bill that would make banning the Quran an act punishable by fines or up to two years in prison. The draft bill was introduced over national security concerns.
“I had received the news of your criminalization of assaulting the holy books with all my respect and appreciation,” Sadr said in a message to the Nordic countries on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“I am also fully prepared to adopt a meaningful and constructive dialogue between you and us,” he added.
While Sweden has not adopted legal measures to criminalize the burning of religious texts, it has vowed to explore other means of stopping protests aimed at burning religious books.
“Just as we stood against Islamic State [ISIS] extremism in our country and your country, we hope that you will not give lurkers the opportunity to fish in troubled waters between brothers in religion or counterparts in humanity,” Sadr said.
The Iraqi foreign ministry on Saturday praised Copenhagen’s decision to introduce the draft bill seeking to criminalize the burning of the Quran, saying that such burnings “fuel and perpetuate hatred between human societies and threaten peaceful coexistence,” as well as straining ties between Islamic and European countries.
The legislation proposed by the Danish government would also apply to other religious books and symbols, such as the Bible and the Torah.
In Sweden, the Islamic holy book and the Iraqi flag were desecrated twice this summer, drawing the ire of Sadr supporters and the Iraqi government, which expelled the Swedish ambassador and recalled its charge d’affaires from Stockholm, after Swedish police gave a green light for a protest by an Iraqi refugee who burned a copy of the Quran and the Iraqi flag.
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