After protesting at Swedish Embassy in KL, Islamist group heads over to Dutch Embassy for apology over torn Quran
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 27 — The Malaysian chapter of a pro-caliphate group Hizbur Tahrir mounted its second demonstration outside the Embassy of the Netherlands here after Friday prayers this afternoon, protesting the desecration of a Quran by a Dutch political leader earlier this week.
Some 80 members of the group, including children, had earlier held a peaceful protest outside the Swedish Embassy on Jalan Mayang Sari this morning, to condemn the burning of a Quran by Swedish-Danish politician Rasmus Paludan who leads a Danish party called Stram Kurs (which means Hard Line) outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm last week.
Now grown to about 100 strong, they regrouped at the nearby Tabung Haji mosque after Friday prayers before marching for about one kilometre to the Dutch Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.
They were protesting against Edwin Wagensveld, head of the Dutch chapter of the German Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamicisation of the Occident, abbreviated as Pegida, who tore pages from the Islamic holy book and stepped all over them at The Hague earlier this week.
Hizbur Tahrir — a controversial Muslim group with chapters worldwide — was also joined by several other people wearing T-shirts associated with several local Malay-Muslim political parties.
Its representative Mu’adz Abu Thalhah later told the crowd that it had handed over its memorandum of demands to Eva Oskam, deputy head of the Netherlands mission here.
He claimed Oskam had “apologised” on behalf of the Netherlands government.
“But for us, the one who did it must apologise and the Netherlands government itself must apologise to all Muslims because the one who did it said his action was allowed by the government,” he told the demonstrators after meeting the Dutch representatives.
Mu’adz also claimed that Muslim leaders did not do enough to give a “stern warning” over Wagensveld’s action.
“The Muslim government leaders must give stern warning to both Swedish and Netherlands governments because as far as I see for now there are only rhetorical warnings issued,” he said, adding that the caliphate of old had taken military action when Muslims were slighted in the past.
More than 50 policemen in uniform and plain clothes were observed watching the demonstration outside the Dutch Embassy.
The protest ended at about 3pm without incident.
