The Shia Muslim Community, Ghana led by its National Imam Sheikh Abubakar Kamaludeen, has strongly condemned the desecration of the Holy Qur'an sanctioned by the Swedish Government.
"No civilised state or individual will authorise such a hate, racist and despicable campaign against the religion of Islam on the pretext of freedom of expression," a statement from the Office of the National Imam of the Shia Muslim Community, copied the Ghanaian Times said.
The statement called on the Swedish government "to be responsible and behave like a civilised state, to punish the perpetrators of this criminal act or hand them over for prosecution and render an unqualified apology to the Muslim world."
"The Shia Muslim Community regards the Holy Qur'an as a Revealed Scripture that remains undistorted despite series of attempts to distort it by the enemies of Islam.
The issuing of permit for demonstrators to desecrate the scripture of any revealed religion in the name of free expression
is a clear endorsement of organised hate and bigotry, and must therefore be addressed devoid of propaganda and prejudice," the statement added.
"We strongly condemn this reckless move and urge the Swedish government to be civil, responsible and consider the potential ramifications of hurting the feelings of over a billion people on earth," it said.
"It is our resolute responsibility to protect the sanctity of the Holy Qur'an from the agents of hate, racism, chaos and hypocrisy."
The statement pointed out that without a slight of doubt, every society needed development, adding that development came with ideas that must be expressed for societal transformation, "it is certainly from the free exchange of ideas that knowledge or truth emerges leading to development."
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The statement, however, added that expressions that threatened social harm, incite chaos or fan national or global disunity must never be allowed by any thinking and civilised people, "for peace and security to prevail, human rights and freedom must be surrounded by restrictions, interfering with the sensibilities, fundamental rights and freedom of others causes nothing but anarchy."
It said "free expression must not be used to satisfy the inordinate ambitions of individuals, governments and others whose intention is to consciously create dissension, sow seeds of discord, spread venoms of blasphemy and chaos between and among civilisations or religions.
The Holy Qur'an which we believe to be the only undistorted revealed Book is our Red Line. The endorsement of Islamophobia under the rules of protecting free speech is highly hypocritical. Likewise, deploring hate campaign and at the same time failing to prevent it is indeed duplicitous.
"The world appears to be a scaremongering time, and it is only the right application of the message of peace, rule of law, good governance, fundamental human administrative justice that peace and security can prevail," the statement added.
