TEHRAN- Leader of the Islamic Revolution has called the support of the Swedish government for desecrator of the holy Quran as equivalent to entering a battle-array.

The move has instigated feelings of hatred and enmity toward the Swedes among all Muslims as well as many Muslim governments.

In a message on Saturday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “the insult to the holy Quran in Sweden is a bitter, conspiratorial, and dangerous event.”

The Leader also called for the “severest punishment” for the perpetrator.

“It is the opinion of all Islamic scholars that the agent who has insulted the Quran deserve the severest punishment,” the Leader stressed, according to khamenei.ir.

Additionally, the Leader lambasted the Swedish government for its supportive role in desecrating the Quran, saying, “In addition, the Swedish government should know that supporting criminals against the world of Islam is equivalent to going into battle-array for war. And this action has created feelings of hatred and enmity toward them in all the Muslim nations and many of their governments.”

“It is that government’s duty to turn over the agent who has committed this crime to the judicial systems of Muslim countries,” he added.

“The conspirators behind the scenes should know that the sanctity and glory of the Quran will increase day by day and the lights of its guidance will shine even more than before. Those who have designed this conspiracy and those who have carried it out are more contemptible than to be able to stop this ever-increasing luminescence. ‘Allah has full command of His affairs’ [Holy Quran 12:21],” Ayatollah Khamenei highlighted.

A Christian extremist’s desecration of the Quran in Stockholm has led to significant protests and outrage in the Muslim world.

The protests are in response to Swedish police allowing an individual residing in Stockholm to desecrate the Quran for the second time. The first one occurred on June 28 the second one on July 20.

People have held protests to denounce the blasphemous conduct in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Lebanon, and other nations.

On Thursday, demonstrators in Baghdad stormed into the Swedish embassy and burned part of it to express their outrage at the sacrilegious deed.

In protest to the Swedish government that allowed the Quran to be profaned, the Iraqi government also decided to ask the Swedish ambassador to leave Baghdad and to recall its envoy from Stockholm.

Iran ramps up pressure on Sweden

Angry reactions in Iran to the desecration of the Quran in Europe continued to rage on amid the global outcry over the repetition of sacrilegious act.

After Friday prayers, millions of believers in Iran held rallies, carrying copies of the Quran and chanting “Death to the Americanized Sweden. Death to Israel”.

In the same day, a group of people gathered in front of the Swedish embassy in Tehran. The gathering turned into a sit-in. The demonstrators said they will continue their sit-in until the Swedish ambassador is expelled from Iran, state news agency IRNA reported.

This was also echoed by a senior Iranian lawmaker. Vahid Jalalzadeh, the head of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said the Iranian people expect that the Swedish ambassador gets expelled over the desecration of the holy book.

He also said that the desecration came at a time when the Iranian people and others in the world were mourning the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (PBUH).

“In these days as (Shia) Muslims in Iran and other parts of the world are mourning for the oppressed of the world, Aba Abdullah al-Hussein (PBUH), unfortunately for the second time in Sweden the holy Quran was desecrated which offended all the freedom seekers,” the MP told IRNA.

Jalalzadeh added, “The evil move of desecrating the Quran shows the sick nature of the liberal democracy of the West, that the concept of freedom is captured in this intellectual system and freedom is oppressed in the Western cognitive system.”

He pointed out that more dangerous than the position of the person who burned the Quran is the silence of the Swedish government, police and Westerners about this movement. “Insulting the values of the world's Muslims is an insult to humanity, to freedom, and to religions and nations,” he continued.

He called the summoning of the Swedish ambassador by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a minimal action. “What we expect from the revolutionary government is the expulsion of Mattias Lentz, the Swedish ambassador to Tehran,” he suggested.

Underlining that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should quickly launch a movement to condemn this heinous act, Jalalzadeh said, “Muslim nations and freedom-loving countries of the world have higher, more serious and important expectations from the Islamic Republic.”

In a separate move, the Iranian embassy in Baku called for a concerted Islamic action by embassies of the Islamic countries in Baku in reaction to the profanity of the holy Quran.

“While appreciating the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan in strongly condemning this hateful act, this embassy wants the embassies of Islamic and non-Islamic countries in Baku to act in a coordinated and united campaign to immediately condemn such offensive and dangerous actions that were repeated with the support of the government and police of these countries (European countries),” the Iranian embassy said in a statement.