(Lahore) Hundreds of people demonstrated Tuesday in the big Pakistani city of Lahore, to protest against the burning of a Koran by an extreme right activist this weekend in Sweden.
“Shame on Sweden,” sang the demonstrators, gathered at the call of local political parties.
In a protest authorized by Swedish police near the Turkish Embassy, Swedish-Danish right-wing extremist Rasmus Paludan burned a copy of the Koran on Saturday, sparking strong protests from Ankara and several capitals of the Muslim world.
“The guise of freedom of expression cannot be used to offend the religious feelings of the 1.5 billion Muslims around the world. This is unacceptable,” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif tweeted on Sunday.
Stockholm deplored a “deeply disrespectful” act and expressed its “sympathy” to Muslims, stressing that the Swedish Constitution prevented from prohibiting this type of action, but without calming anger.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reacted strongly on Monday, saying Sweden could no longer count on Ankara’s “support” for its NATO membership bid after the incident.
Turkey has been blocking Sweden’s – and Finland’s – entry into NATO since May, accusing them of harboring Kurdish militants and sympathizers whom it describes as “terrorists”, in particular those of the Workers’ Party of Kurdistan (PKK).
The issue of blasphemy is particularly sensitive in Pakistan, where even unproven allegations of offense to Islam can result in killings and lynchings.
The country has also repeatedly expressed concern over what it sees as rising Islamophobia around the world.