Kuwait joins Quran burning protests

Kuwait has joined global protests against a plan by a US church to burn copies of Islam’s holy book of Quran amid mounting outrage in the country over the scheme.

“This bizarre plan…is a flagrant insult to the feelings of Muslims worldwide and would ruin efforts to preach understanding amongst faiths,” said an unnamed foreign ministry official cited by the KUNA news agency, AFP reported.

The official said Kuwait has asked its ambassador in Washington and envoy to the United Nations to coordinate with Arab and Muslim envoys to ensure that the “tolerant Islamic faith is respected.”

MPs of various Kuwaiti groups earlier expressed outrage at the Quran burning planned in Florida on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York.

“It is a flagrant aggression on Islam and Muslims and the government should summon the US ambassador and present her with a protest letter against this savage act,” independent MP Saifi al-Saifi said in a statement.

Lawmaker Waleed al-Tabtabai condemned the burning as a “provocation to the entire Muslim world,” while another lawmaker Saleh Ashur described the move as aimed at humiliation of Islam.

The head of the Christian churches league in Kuwait, Pastor Emmanuel Benjamen al-Ghareeb, condemned the plan in a statement and denounced it as against Christ’s teachings of tolerance.

The Quran-burning decision by Florida’s evangelical church has sparked fury among Muslims across the world and triggered angry demonstrations in condemnation of the plans.