Moscow is deeply concerned by the recent series of Quran-burning protests in northern Europe and is calling on European lawmakers to publicly condemn and punish those responsible for desecration of religious relics, Russian upper house chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko said on Saturday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th February, 2023) Moscow is deeply concerned by the recent series of Quran-burning protests in northern Europe and is calling on European lawmakers to publicly condemn and punish those responsible for desecration of religious relics, Russian upper house chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko said on Saturday.
"Russian senators call on European lawmakers to publicly condemn the actions of radical extremists as a manifestation of religious intolerance and take measures to protect the right to freedom of religion of Muslims and representatives of other religions, as well as bring perpetrators to justice," Matviyenko said on Telegram.
The Russian upper house speaker added that members of all faiths across Russia, and not only Muslims, have been deeply shocked by the desecration of the Quran. Meanwhile, the "lack of an adequate response to the actions of extremists from the governments and parliaments of European countries" is particularly disturbing, she added.
Earlier in January, Rasmus Paludan, the leader of the far-right Danish political party Stram Kurs, burned copies of the Quran in Sweden and Denmark in protest against the Turkish leadership. A similar protest was carried out by far-right Dutch politician and leader of the Islamophobic group Pegida Edwin Wagensveld in the Netherlands, when he tore out pages from a copy of the Muslim holy book and burned them in front of the parliamentary building in The Hague.
