Protests have been held in a number of predominantly Muslim international locations to denounce the current desecration of Islam’s holy guide by far-right activists in Sweden and the Netherlands.

The protests in international locations together with Pakistan, Iraq and Lebanon ended with individuals dispersing peacefully.

In Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, cops stopped some demonstrators making an attempt to march in direction of the Swedish embassy.

In Beirut, about 200 offended protesters burned the flags of Sweden and the Netherlands exterior the blue-domed Mohammed Al-Amin mosque in central Martyrs Square.

Earlier this month, a far-right activist from Denmark obtained permission from police to stage a protest exterior the Turkish embassy in Stockholm the place he burned the Koran, Islam’s holy guide.

Days later, Edwin Wagensveld, Dutch chief of the far-right Pegida motion within the Netherlands, tore pages out of a replica of the Koran close to the Dutch parliament and stomped on them.

The strikes angered hundreds of thousands of Muslims around the globe and triggered protests.

Swedish officers have harassed that freedom of expression is assured by the Swedish structure and offers individuals intensive rights to precise their views publicly, although incitement to violence or hate speech will not be allowed.

Demonstrators should apply to police for a allow for a public gathering.

Police can deny such permits solely on distinctive grounds, corresponding to dangers to public security.

Iraq’s highly effective Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr requested in feedback launched on Friday whether or not freedom of speech means offending different individuals’s beliefs.

He requested why “doesn’t the burning of the gays’ rainbow flag represent freedom of expression”.

The cleric added that burning the Koran “will bring divine anger”.

Hundreds of his supporters gathered exterior a mosque in Baghdad waving copies of the Koran.