At the kind invitation of the Permanent Delegation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), in its capacity as President of the current Islamic Summit and Chairman of the Executive Committee, Dr. Abdel Fattah Mahmoud Abnauf, Director of Planning, International Cooperation and External Relations, representing the Secretary General of the Academy, took part in the emergency meeting of the Executive Committee with open membership, concerning the incident of Quran burning in Sweden, on Sunday 14 Dhul Hijja 1444, corresponding to July 2, 2023, at the headquarters of the OIC General Secretariat in Jeddah.

The meeting began with a speech by the Saudi delegation, in which they indicated the need to activate the Islamophobia Observatory so that it plays the desired role and takes advantage of the International Day Against Islamophobia, to organize more educational and cultural meetings to spread knowledge about religious symbols, to strengthen the activities of OIC offices abroad, and include the desecration of the Holy Quran and Religion among the priorities of foreign ministers meetings and UN councils and conferences, in order to take more practical measures against this phenomenon.

For his part, the Secretary General of the OIC stressed the urgent need to activate international laws and regulations to mitigate repeated insults to Islamic symbols and to promote a correct understanding of the principle of freedom of expression, with the aspiration, through this meeting, to take steps to respond to acts of intolerance, discrimination and contempt for religion in view to protect our divine book and noble religion.

This was followed by interventions from Members States of Executive Committee, including Turkey, Pakistan and Cameroon. The Permanent Representative of the Turkey also urged to activate the Observatory of Islamophobia, to activate the OIC’s diplomatic wing by lobbying parliaments and civil society organizations in these countries, in addition to appointing a special envoy for Islamophobia within the OIC, and to issue press releases with particular intensity, especially those in Western Europe.

The permanent representative of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan spoke against justifying these actions under the pretext of the freedom of expression and using them as a pretext to desecrate scriptures, while calling for the cooperation of all to mitigate these malicious actions and take concrete measures against these acts that offend Islam and Muslims.

The permanent representative of Cameroon spoke of the need to firmly condemn these repeated and abusive actions which occurred under the eyes of the Swedish authorities, pointing out that, for instance, his country, Cameroon, despite its cultural diversity, and the freedom to practice religion, yet they live in perfect harmony, and nothing has ever happened in their country that offends any religion whatsoever. He also seized the opportunity to strongly condemn these actions that lead to hatred of other people and religions and he stressed that support for dialogue, strengthening relations and respect for others does not mean allowing and accepting such behavior under the pretext of freedom of expression, in addition to expressing the need to focus on activating the Observatory of Islamophobia by preparing the necessary studies and documents and to rely on the necessary means to take.

It should be noted that the Academy’s representative informed the Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Chairman of the session, H.E. Ambassador Dr. Al-Suhaibani, that the Academy had issued a statement denouncing the incident in Arabic, French and English. Hence, The Executive Committee meeting had issued a final statement, of which a number of paragraphs of which were based on the statement issued by IIFA.