Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that attacking people's sanctities is not freedom of thought, but barbarism and a kind of terrorist act, referring to the incident of burning the Holy Quran last month in Sweden.
Erdogan added – during a press conference at the end of the summit of leaders of NATO countries, which took place over two days in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius – "We documented statements in which the Swedish government condemned the flagrant attack on the Holy Quran on its territory," stressing the need not to allow hate crimes that insult and anger two billion Muslims around the world.
On the adoption by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva of a draft resolution submitted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to condemn acts of religious hatred such as the burning of the Qur'an despite the opposition of Western countries, the Turkish president stressed that countries that rejected the resolution must reconsider their freedom and human rights.
He pointed out that the Human Rights Council condemned the incident of burning the Holy Quran and described it as a "religious hate crime", announcing that his country welcomed the resolution.
He called on all countries witnessing an increase in Islamophobia, not just Sweden, to take firm decisions on the matter.
It is noteworthy that Sweden witnessed last month, on the first day of Eid al-Adha, a new incident of burning the Holy Qur'an, where an extremist of Iraqi origins, Silwan Mumika, 37, tore a copy of the Qur'an and set it on fire at the Stockholm Central Mosque, after the Swedish police granted him permission to do so following a judicial decision.