Thousands of supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr participated in a mass protest outside the Swedish embassy in Baghdad today, Friday, demanding the severance of diplomatic relations between the two countries after a man set fire to a Quran outside a mosque in Stockholm. Protesters carried images of al-Sadr and his father, waved Iraqi flags, and chanted "Yes, yes to the Quran, Muqtada, Muqtada."
The protesters also set fire to large rainbow-colored flags representing the LGBTQ community while verses from the Quran were recited in the background. A smaller protest occurred in the Dhi Qar province in southern Iraq. Al-Sadr, in his statement, called on "the believers, may God honor them with His honor, to express their views regarding the burning of holy books, especially the Quran, in front of mosques or embassies, and on Muslim holidays through a massive angry demonstration against the Swedish embassy in Iraq."
He urged his followers to demand the expulsion of the Swedish ambassador and the severance of relations with Sweden. In a statement read by the leader of the Sadrist movement during the march, al-Sadr remarked, "O you who call for democracy and freedom and demand freedom of expression, be fair to yourselves if you are not fair to God Almighty or to others. If you defend freedoms and human rights, you must not double standard; if you say that burning the LGBTQ flag is considered a major hate crime, as the US and its ilk hastily claimed, why do you not consider the burning of the Quran a major hate crime?!"
The Swedish police have accused the man who burned the Quran of inciting hatred against an ethnic or national group. The man described himself in a newspaper interview as an Iraqi refugee seeking to ban the Quran. The Swedish police, in their statement about Wednesday's protest, noted that while it "may have consequences for foreign policy," the risks and security consequences associated with burning the Quran were not of a nature that warranted rejecting the request.
