Venezuela’s Maduro Demands Europe Stop Burnings of ‘Sacred’ Quran

Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro demanded that European countries outlaw Quran-burning protests on his television show Con Maduro Más on Monday, claiming governments who respect free speech are “indirect accomplices” in blasphemy.

Maduro is one of the world’s most prolific human rights abusers, with an especially extensive record of violating the freedom of expression of his people. Under his rule, Venezuela regularly imprisons and tortures political dissidents, using facilities such as the high-tech torture center “The Tomb” and the Helicoide political prison to punish anti-socialists and pro-democracy activists. Rampant state violence against anti-socialist dissidents in the second half of the 2010s led to a mass migrant wave that remains ongoing today and the eradication of a genuine anti-socialist political opposition. Maduro claims Venezuela will host presidential “elections” featuring Maduro and hand-picked leftist opponents in 2024.

On his program on Monday – which airs in the Middle East through the pro-Hezbollah television network Al Mayadeen, Maduro referenced a wave of anti-Islamic protests in northern Europe that began in June after an Iraqi immigrant, Salwan Momika, burned a Quran in Sweden while laughing and shouting “Allahu akbar.” Momika applied for the proper permits for his display, which also included placing bits of ham on the book, and won a court case on the matter, as judges noted Swedish law protects peaceful speech. Momika has held subsequent protests against Islam and several other groups in Denmark and other nations have threatened to organize similar assemblies, which do not violate the freedom of expression laws in the countries involved but have triggered a massive diplomatic crisis.

“I ask myself as a Christian, what we Christians would feel if someone should burn the Bible in another country?” Maduro asked on his television program. “We would feel great sadness and it would be a great insult if someone were to do this.”

“So, therefore, I feel in my heart the indignation of the Muslim peoples of the world when they see that they are burning Qurans,” Maduro continued. “I absolutely repudiate, I absolutely reject hate crimes against Muslim people, I repudiate the sectors of the ultra-right, the racist sectors who in Europe burn the Quran, and I repudiate the sectors who look the other way.”

Maduro did not specify that the man who began the wave of Quran burnings is Iraqi in his condemnation of “racist sectors.”

The dictator went on to call anyone who supported the freedom of expression in these cases as “indirect accomplices” to the Quran burnings.

“You see the silence of the presidents in Europe and the silence of many media outlets,” he observed. “It is repudiable to burn the Quran. We must respect the sacred character of the Quran, of the prophets, and of every religion in the world.”

Con Maduro Más airs on Monday evenings, so Venezuelans have yet to see the episode in their country. His remarks nonetheless circulated in international media, particularly through the Iranian state network HispanTV, Al Mayadeen, and the Russian news agency Tass.

The Venezuelan dictator’s commentary is a reaction to growing outrage in the Muslim world over the anti-Quran protests, which began when Momika burned a copy of the book in Stockholm on June 28. Momika has reportedly lived in Sweden since 2018 and some news outlets have identified him as a former member of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a coalition of Iran-backed militias that rose to prominence and became a formal wing of the Iraqi military during the war against the Islamic State. Several PMF units are U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations and PMF leaders have repeatedly threatened to kill American troops. Momika has publicly identified as a former Christian atheist.

The Muslim world reacted with outrage against Sweden following the initial burning. The government of Islamist strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey threatened to foil Sweden’s application to join NATO in response. A mob of thousands of supporters of anti-American and anti-Iranian cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stormed multiple major cities in Iraq in protests, burning Swedish and rainbow flags. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) issued a statement demanding global blasphemy laws to criminalize all negative statements and actions towards Islam, and Pakistan – which has long demanded a global ban on anti-Islamic speech, pursued similar measures at the United Nations.

“In Sweden, we have the freedom of expression. We also respect people who have a different opinion and the fact that it may hurt some feelings. We have to look at the law. That is what we do,” local Swedish police chief Mattias Sigfridsson told the Associated Press in early July.

A separate group burned a Quran in Copenhagen, Denmark in mid-July, prompting a second wave of mob attacks in Iraq.

The Venezuelan socialist regime has long maintained close ties to radical Islamists throughout the Middle East. Late dictator Hugo Chávez enthusiastically pursued close ties to the world’s most prominent state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, which Maduro has maintained during his decade in power. Maduro has expanded them to friendly relations with Erdogan in Turkey, who invited Maduro to an OIC meeting in 2017 – despite Venezuela being upwards of 90 percent Christian – and with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

“Maduro’s participation in the extraordinary summit of the Islamic Cooperation Organization on Jerusalem is a powerful message to the world,” Erdogan said following the meeting. “This is a time where there is a lot of Islamaphobia around the world, so President Maduro’s support is very important to teach the world about acceptance.”

Security experts have for years accused Maduro of supporting Hezbollah. A defecting Venezuelan embassy staffer in Baghdad accused the Maduro regime in 2015 of fraudulently selling authentic Venezuelan documents to various Mideast nationals, including birth certificates and passports. Maduro’s former oil minister, Tareck El Aissami, has long been accused of working as a “bagman” in Latin America for Hezbollah. Maduro purged El Aissami in March, accusing him of corruption.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.