Denmark's judiciary has decided to ban the desecration of the Holy Qur'an following the negative impact of such moves.
Denmark’s justice minister told reporters on Friday that the government will present a bill that will “prohibit the inappropriate treatment of objects of significant religious importance to a religious community.”
Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard said the legislation especially targets the disrespectful desecrations carried out by a few individuals at public places in the Scandinavian nation which has upset Muslims.
In the latest act of desecration of the Holy Qur'an in a neighboring Scandinavian country, a serial blasphemer burned a copy of the sacred Muslim book in front of the Iranian embassy in Stockholm.
Swedish police instead arrested a woman who tried to stop the perpetrator.
Such sacrilegious moves, which have been authorized by the Swedish police under the pretext of freedom of speech laws, have drawn the ire of the whole Muslim world, prompting the summoning or expulsion of Swedish and Danish envoys from several countries and putting the Scandinavian countries' security forces on high alert over fears of reprisal.
Earlier this month, speaking in a phone conversation with his Danish counterpart, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian explained that the desecration of the Qur'an hurt the feelings of all Muslims in Islamic countries, and followers of other Abrahamic religions, and therefore, needed to be stopped.
“Freedom of expression is not a concept that can be used [to justify] targeting and attacking religious values,” the Iranian foreign minister said, noting the repetition of such “reprehensible and insulting actions,” which are reminiscent of the time before the advent of Islam are “condemned in the strongest possible terms.”
“As to the repetition of the abhorrent phenomenon of insulting the Holy Qur'an… the Danish government is seriously expected to prevent the recurrence of such acts through responsible actions and effective measures and to hold the perpetrators accountable with the harshest punishment,” he said.
Denmark's Minister for Foreign Affairs Lars Lokke Rasmussen, for his part, expressed strong regret over the insults, insisting the government strongly condemns any desecration of the Holy Quran.
The Danish diplomat said freedom of expression was allowed by Danish law, but expressed regret that some people abuse it, “which we consider unacceptable.” “These few individuals should not be considered representatives of the Danish people.”