A Dutch far-right activist trampled on and tore up a copy of the Quran at a demonstration outside the Turkish embassy in The Hague on Friday, infuriating dozens of counter-protesters.<\/p>\n
The Dutch government had already condemned the holding of the demonstration ahead of the event, but said it had no legal powers to prevent it.<\/p>\n
Edwin Wagensveld, who leads the Dutch branch of the far-right group Pegida, damaged a copy of the Quran, AFP correspondents witnessed. He was accompanied by two other people.<\/p>\n
Police had sealed off access to the street where the Turkish embassy is located and there were around fifty counter-protesters also present.<\/p>\n
Some of them began throwing stones at Wagensveld when he tore up pages from the Quran, the holy book of Islam.<\/p>\n
Around 20 police equipped with shields and batons intervened when some of the crowd tried to chase after him as he left.<\/p>\n
On Friday morning Dilan Yesilgoz, the Netherlands\u2019 Turkish-born justice minister, described the plan to destroy the holy book as \u201cfairly primitive and pathetic.\u201d But the country\u2019s laws authorized such a demonstration, she added.<\/p>\n
Wagensveld nevertheless faces trial for comments he made during a similar demonstration in January, when he tore up a copy of the Quran outside parliament while likening the book to Adolf Hitler\u2019s \u201cMein Kampf.\u201d<\/p>\n
A T-shirt he wore at Friday\u2019s demonstration made a similar claim. Geert Wilders, the leader of another far-right party, the PVV, posted a message online supporting Friday\u2019s demonstration by Pegida.<\/p>\n
Similar attacks on the Quran have taken place in other European countries recently. In late July, two men set fire to a copy of the Quran in front of the Swedish parliament, and similar incidents have taken place in Denmark this year.<\/p>\n
Such demonstrations have provoked anger and sometimes unrest in several Muslim countries.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Sweden\u2019s intelligence agency heightened its terror alert level to four on a scale of five in response to the angry reactions in the Muslim world to Quran burnings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Dutch far-right activist trampled on and tore up a copy of the Quran at a demonstration outside the Turkish embassy in The Hague on Friday, infuriating dozens of counter-protesters. The Dutch government had already condemned the holding of the demonstration ahead of the event, but said it had no legal powers to prevent it. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":136654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-world-news"],"yoast_head":"\n