OIC suspended the status of Sweden`s envoy over Quran burning

RELIGIOUS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – The Organization of Islamic Cooperation(OIC) as a reaction to series of Quran burning in Sweden and Denmark has suspended the status of Sweden’s special envoy.

As AP reported a string of Quran burnings in Stockholm sparked anger and mass protests in a number of Muslim countries.

The organization comprised of 57 Muslim-majority nations said Sunday that the suspension was due to the “ granting by the Swedish authorities of licenses that enabled the repeated abuse of the sanctity of the Holy Quran and Islamic symbols.”

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s decision came after the bloc’s executive committee held a July 2 meeting following an earlier Quran-burning incident.

The committee asked the secretary-general to consider suspending the status of the special envoy from “any country in which copies of the Holy Qur’an or other Islamic values and symbols are desecrated with the consent of the authorities concerned,” according to Sunday’s statement.

The organization said it had sent a letter to Sweden’s foreign minister conveying the decision.

A public burning of the Quran in Denmark on Friday sparked more protests in Iraq, some of them violent.

Denmark’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday condemned the burning of the Quran.