Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

The UAE has strongly condemned the burning of a copy of the Holy Quran by an extremist in The Hague, Netherlands.

In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MoFAIC) affirmed the UAE's permanent rejection of all practices aimed at destabilising security in contravention of human and moral values and principles.

The Ministry stressed the need to respect religious symbols and to avoid incitement and polarisation at a time when the world must work together to spread the values of tolerance and coexistence and reject hatred and extremism.

The Dutch public broadcaster said Edwin Wagensveld, who heads the Dutch chapter of the German anti-Islam group Pegida, tore pages out of the Muslim holy book during a one-man protest, three days after the Swedish extremist Rasmus Paludan did the same near Stockholm last Saturday.

The Pegida movement shared via Twitter a video clip showing the provocative act, which took place in front of the parliament building in The Hague.

According to media, the Dutch police granted him permission on the condition that he not burn the Holy Book of Muslims, but he later burned the torn pages of the Quran.

In the video, Dutch police officers were standing behind him without any act, while he was tearing and trampling the pages of the Quran.

The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, according to the Anatolia News Agency, that Ankara summoned the Dutch ambassador on Tuesday to protest against the insult to the Holy Quran, and called on the Netherlands not to allow such provocative acts.”

Russia condemned the incident and called for action against extremists, while the United States considered the crime "disgusting and hateful."

Russia also condemned the Stockholm incident and the Russian Foreign Ministry announced, in a statement on its website, its refusal to burn the Holy Quran by extremists under the pretext of freedom of expression, calling for measures to be taken against extremists.

"We condemn and reject such criminal actions, and call for action against extremists," said Gennady Askaldovich, Special Representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The Religious Administration of Russia's Muslims condemned, in a statement, the burning of the Quran in Sweden, describing this act as provocative and subversive, calling on Muslims not to succumb to incitement to ethnic strife.

The United States commented for the first time on the incident of burning a copy of the Quran in Sweden, pointing to possible political repercussions.

"The burning of sacred books means to many an extremely humiliating act. It is abhorrent," said State Department spokesman Ned Price to reporters. He also described the incident as disgusting and abhorrent.