JAKARTA, Indonesia

Indonesia strongly denounced the Quran burning during a rally in Sweden and the republication of offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad by the French magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said those provocative acts offend hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world.

“Those acts are provocative, irresponsible, and contrary to the principles and values ​​of democracy,” she said during a virtual press conference on Friday.

Moreover, those incidents will more likely disunite religious communities around the world, which adds an extra burden to the world amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last Friday, around 300 protesters held a rally in Malmo, Sweden, which later led to a riot, leaving 10 protesters arrested and several police officers injured.

The commotion was triggered by an illegal protest in the largely migrant neighborhood of Rosengard earlier that day, where far-right activists burned a copy of the Quran.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo reprinted the insulting cartoons of Muslim Prophet Mohammad, as the trial opened over the subsequent 2015 terror attack on its Paris office./aa