BAGHDAD: Thousands of people took to streets in Muslim-majority countries on Friday to express their outrage at the desecration of a copy of the Quran in Sweden, a day after protesters stormed the country’s embassy in Iraq.
The protests in Iraq, Lebanon and Iran that followed weekly prayers were controlled and peaceful, in contrast to scenes in Baghdad on Thursday, when demonstrators occupied the Swedish embassy compound for several hours and set a small fire.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called on Muslims to demand their governments expel Sweden’s ambassadors. Iraq cut diplomatic ties with Sweden earlier that day.
The demonstrations come after Swedish police permitted a protest on Thursday in which an Iraq man of Christian origin living in Stockholm threatened to burn a copy of the Quran. In the end, the man kicked and stood on the holy book outside the Iraq’s embassy.