Protesters collect in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, carrying Iraqi flags and pictures of influential Iraqi Shiite cleric and political chief Muqtada al-Sadr, on Saturday following studies of the burning of a Quran carried out by a ultranationalist group in entrance of the Iraqi Embassy in Copenhagen.

Ali Jabar/AP

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Ali Jabar/AP

Protesters collect in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, carrying Iraqi flags and pictures of influential Iraqi Shiite cleric and political chief Muqtada al-Sadr, on Saturday following studies of the burning of a Quran carried out by a ultranationalist group in entrance of the Iraqi Embassy in Copenhagen.

Ali Jabar/AP

BAGHDAD — Tensions flared once more in Iraq Saturday over a sequence of current protests in Europe involving desecration of the Quran, Islam’s holy ebook, which have sparked a debate over the stability between freedom of speech and spiritual sensitivities.

Hundreds of protesters tried to storm Baghdad’s closely fortified Green Zone, which homes overseas embassies and the seat of Iraq’s authorities, early Saturday following studies that an ultranationalist group burned a replica of the Quran in entrance of the Iraqi Embassy within the Danish capital, Copenhagen.

The protest got here two days after folks angered by the deliberate burning of the Islamic holy ebook in Sweden stormed the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad.

Security forces on Saturday pushed again protesters, who blocked the Jumhuriya bridge resulting in the Green Zone, stopping them from reaching the Danish Embassy.

Elsewhere in Iraq, protesters burned three caravans belonging to a demining challenge run by the the Danish Refugee Council, or DRC, within the metropolis of Basra within the south, native police stated in a press release. The hearth was extinguished by civil protection responders, and there have been “no human casualties, only material losses,” the assertion stated.

The DRC confirmed in an emailed assertion to The Associated Press that its premises in Basra “came under armed attack” early Saturday.

“We deplore this attack – aid workers should never be a target of violence,” Lilu Thapa, DRC’s government director for the Middle East stated.

Iraq’s prime minister has reduce diplomatic ties with Sweden in protest over the desecration of the Quran in that nation.

An Iraqi asylum-seeker who burned a replica of the Quran throughout an illustration final month in Stockholm had threatened to do the identical factor once more Thursday however in the end stopped in need of setting hearth to the ebook. He did, nevertheless, kick and step on it, and did the identical with an Iraqi flag and a photograph of influential Iraqi Shiite cleric and political chief Muqtada al-Sadr and of Iran’s supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The proper to carry public demonstrations is protected by the structure in Sweden, and blasphemy legal guidelines had been deserted within the Seventies. Police usually give permission primarily based on whether or not they consider a public gathering might be held with out main disruptions or security dangers.

On Friday afternoon, 1000’s protested peacefully in Iraq and different Muslim-majority nations.

In the incident in Copenhagen, in accordance with Danish media studies, members of the ultranationalist group Danske Patrioter burned a replica of the Quran and an Iraqi flag in entrance of the Iraqi Embassy, livestreaming the motion on Facebook.

Copenhagen police spokeswoman Trine Fisker advised The Associated Press that “a very small demonstration” with fewer than 10 folks happened Friday afternoon throughout the road from the Iraqi Embassy and {that a} ebook was burned.

“We do not know what book it was,” she stated. “Apparently they tried to burn the Iraqi flag and after that, somebody stepped on it.”

Fisker stated the “political angle is not for the police to comment” on, however the “event was peaceful … from a police perspective.”

The Danish authorities on Saturday condemned the demonstration. Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen referred to as the motion “stupidity that a small handful of individuals did.”

“It is a shameful act to violate the religion of others,” he advised Danish public broadcaster DR. “This applies both to the burning of Qurans and other religious symbols. It has no other purpose than to provoke and create division.”

The incident prompted the protests in Baghdad in a single day. Chanting in assist of Sadr and carrying photos of the distinguished chief and the flag related together with his motion, together with the Iraqi flag, tons of of protesters tried to enter the Green Zone and clashed with safety forces earlier than dispersing.

In a press release on Saturday, the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned “in strong and repeated terms, the incident of abuse against the Holy Quran and the flag of the Republic of Iraq in front of the Iraqi Embassy in Denmark.”

It referred to as the worldwide group “to stand urgently and responsibly towards these atrocities that violate social peace and coexistence around the world.” the assertion learn.

Another protest is scheduled to happen in Baghdad at 6 p.m.