Bahrain Calls for International Action Against Quran Desecration

Bahrain has urged the international community to adopt decisive measures against the recurrence of Quran desecrations, which are viewed as offensive to Islam and its followers, reported the official Bahrain News Agency on Wednesday. Yusuf Abdulkarim Bucheeri, the director-general for legal affairs and human rights at Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry and the country’s UN ambassador in Vienna, raised this issue at the UN Human Rights Council’s urgent debate in Geneva on Tuesday. This follows a recent incident in Stockholm where a Swedish citizen of Iraqi origin burned a Quran outside a mosque during a permitted demonstration, provoking global backlash among Muslim communities. Labeling these incidents as “unacceptable” and “reprehensible,” Bucheeri echoed a plea by Bahrain’s king for the global community to reach a consensus on criminalizing religious, sectarian, and racist hate speech.