KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 26 (NNN-Bernama) — Malaysia will not tolerate the act of burning any religious book or text including the Quran, Bible and even the Hindu text, as Malaysians value humanity and respect the right of each individual, said Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
Condemning in the strongest terms the act of extremist Swedish-Danish far-right politician, Rasmus Paludan, in burning a copy of the Quran in Sweden, Anwar said there is so much misunderstanding and prejudices against religions in the world, including Islam.
“What do you want to prove? That you are secular or that you are against Islam or against religions when what you actually portray is the degradation of man and values,” he said here Thursday.
Therefore, Anwar said he had asked Foreign Minister Dr Zambry Abd Kadir to call the Swedish Ambassador and conveyed Malaysia’s feeling of disgust towards Swedish tolerance to the burning of the Quran in the country.
Rasmus Paludan, leader of the Danish far-right party Stram Kurs (Hard Line), was permitted to burn the Quran last Saturday outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm, causing the Muslim world to erupt in anger due to the incident.
Anwar also said Malaysia supports Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his aggressive remark towards the act by the anti-Islam politician in Sweden.
“There is no reason to provoke the sentiment of ummah but we trying to educate our masses. Even within our society, there is a tendency to incite racial hatred or to promote religious bigotry…we have to deal with it. This is the internal challenge we have,” he said.
Anwar, who called the burning of the Quran a barbaric act, also appealed to the masses to continue their protests and express their disgust while accepting this as a challenge to honour the commitment to keep the message of the Quran alive.
— NNN-BERNAMA
