JAKARTA - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said over the weekend those who desecrated the Koran should face the harshest punishment, while Sweden was judged ready to go to war with the Muslim world if it supported those responsible.
Protests flared in Iran and Iraq last week, after Sweden allowed the burning of the Koran under rules protecting free speech. Protesters in Iraq set fire to the Swedish embassy in Baghdad on Thursday.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei denounced Sweden's desecration of the Koran as a bitter and dangerous conspiracy.
He urged the Swedish Government to hand over the perpetrators to the justice system of Muslim countries, to get the harshest punishment.
"The abuse of the holy Koran in Sweden is a bitter, conspiratorial and dangerous incident. The most severe punishment for the perpetrators of this crime is the consensus view of all Islamic scholars," he said as quoted by Tasnim News, July 24.
"The government's responsibility is to hand over the perpetrators of crimes to the justice system of Islamic countries," he said, as reported by Press TV.
"The conspirators behind the scenes must also know that the sanctity and majesty of the Qur'an will increase day by day and the light of its guidance will be brighter," he emphasized.
This was conveyed by Khamenei after an Iraqi immigrant in Sweden burned the Koran outside a mosque in Stockholm last month. The local police had banned it, but the action continued after the court overturned the ban, considering it freedom of opinion and behavior.
Last Thursday, protesters in Sweden kicked and destroyed parts of a book they said was the Koran outside the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm, but did not burn it as they had planned.
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Swedish officials regretted the move but said they could not prevent it. However, recently the country is considering banning similar arson acts in the future.
"The Swedish government should also know that by supporting a criminal, they have taken a stance of war against the Islamic world, fueling hatred and enmity from Muslim countries and their many governments," Khamenei stressed.
Later, Iran, which had delayed posting a new ambassador to Sweden, also said that it would not accept a new Swedish envoy, according to Reuters.
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