Followers of Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr carry his portrait as they protest near Baghdad's Green Zone a day after an alleged burning of the Quran in Copenhagen, early July 22, 2023. (Credit: Murtaja LATEEF / AFP)
Iraqi security forces Saturday dispersed about 1,000 supporters of Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr who tried to march to Baghdad’s Green Zone housing foreign embassies. Demonstrators were reacting to reports of an apparent desecration of the Muslim holy book for the third time within a month — the first two in Sweden having raised diplomatic tensions.
On its Facebook page, the extreme right group Danske Patrioter posted Friday a video of a man burning what seemed to be a Quran and trampling an Iraqi flag.
Copenhagen police deputy chief Trine Fisker told AFP that “not more than a handful” of protesters had gathered Friday across from the Iraqi embassy.
“I can also confirm there was a book burnt,” she said. “We do not know which book it was.”
Hours later, the Danish Refugee Council office in Iraq’s main southern city of Basra came under armed attack, its executive director for the Middle East, Lilu Thapa, said.
“Our staff on the premises at the time were physically unharmed, but there has been damage to the property with structures set on fire.”
Sadr, who has a following of millions among the country’s majority Shiite population and wields great influence over national politics, has urged action after Quran desecrations in Sweden.
His followers gathered in Saturday’s pre-dawn darkness in central Baghdad, some carrying portraits of Sadr.
"Yes, yes to the Quran!" shouted the protesters, mostly young men.
Security forces blocked two bridges leading to the high-security Green Zone where governmental institutions and foreign embassies are located.
The demonstrators tried to force their way through but dispersed several hours later, following scuffles, an interior ministry official told AFP, speaking anonymously because he was not allowed to brief the media.
Another security source said officers used batons and tear gas to repel a small group of demonstrators who managed to break into the Green Zone in an attempt to reach the Danish embassy.
Hundreds of Sadr supporters were already behind the storming and torching of Sweden’s embassy in Baghdad early Thursday, over a planned burning of the Muslim holy book in Sweden, weeks after the same protester there lit pages of the Quran.
‘Words no longer enough’
Early Saturday, Iraq’s foreign ministry had condemned “the desecration of the holy Quran and the Iraqi flag” in front of the embassy in Denmark.
Iraq also condemned the attack on Sweden’s embassy but expelled Stockholm’s ambassador.
Iraqi President Abdel Latif Rashid called on Western governments to put a stop to “provocations.”
The actions of Sweden-based Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika, whose book-burning protest had been permitted by Stockholm on free speech grounds, triggered condemnation across the Muslim world.
Sadr said in a vague tweet Saturday that “words are no longer enough” in defending religion.
The chameleon-like figure, who has reversed his position several over the years, said in April that he was “freezing” his movement’s activities for a year, though the decision would not affect religious activities.
Last August he said he was retiring from politics.
Sadr shows his ‘force’
Hamzeh Hadad, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said Sadr was indirectly challenging his rivals through the Swedish embassy attack.
“This both allows him to show he still possesses force and challenge his rivals’ credibility among the international community,” Hadad wrote on Twitter.
The cleric’s supporters had rallied by their hundreds in Baghdad’s Sadr City after Friday prayers, chanting support for the Quran. Protests also erupted in Iran and Lebanon.
Iran said late Friday it would not allow a new Swedish ambassador into the country.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Momika’s protest in Sweden “dangerous.”
“The severest punishment for the perpetrator of this crime is what all Islamic scholars agree upon,” Khamenei added, calling for Momika to stand trial in an Islamic country.
“The Danish government is responsible for preventing insults to the holy Quran and Islamic sanctities,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said Saturday, “as well as prosecuting and punishing those who insult them.”
The Danish foreign ministry said it “condemns the burning of the Quran.”
“Burning of holy texts and other religious symbols is a shameful act that disrespects the religion of others,” it said in a statement. “It is a provocative act that hurts many people and creates division between different religions and cultures.”