Iraqis try to protest in front of the Danish embassy after learning that the Koran was burned

The incident in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone came two days after protesters stormed and burned down the Swedish embassy in protest of a Quran burning project in Stockholm.

Iraq condemned the attack on the Swedish embassy but also expelled the Swedish ambassador in protest over the planned burning of the Koran, the central text of Islam that Muslims consider a revelation from God.

In Denmark on Friday, a man set fire to a book purported to be the Koran in a square outside the Iraqi embassy in Copenhagen.

The event was broadcast live on the Facebook platform of a group calling itself “Danish Patriots”. The video shows the book burning in a tinfoil tray next to the Iraqi flag on the ground, with two onlookers standing and talking next to it.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen condemned it as an act of “stupidity” on the part of a few individuals, telling national broadcaster DR that “it is a shameful act to insult the religion of others.”

“This applies to the burning of Korans and other religious symbols. It has no other purpose than to provoke and create division,” he said. He pointed out, however, that burning religious books is not a crime in Denmark.

Iran on Saturday urged Denmark and Sweden to take steps to end repeated attacks on the Quran in the Nordic countries, saying Muslims around the world hope the desecration will stop.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared on Saturday that the people who burned the Koran deserve the “most severe punishment” and demanded that Sweden hand over the “perpetrators to the judicial systems of Islamic countries.”

(Reporting by Timour Azhari in Baghdad, Louise Rasmussen in Copenhagen, Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm, and Hatem Maher in Cairo; writing by Tom Perry; editing in Spanish by Carlos Serrano)