KUALA LUMPUR: Hundreds of people marched to the Swedish embassy here after Friday (Jan 27) prayers in protest of the act of burning the Holy Quran in Sweden.
Led by PAS leaders and also a few Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia leaders, the protesters were made up mostly of PAS members.
They gathered at the KLCC mosque and marched to the Swedish embassy about five minutes away in Hampshire Park.
"Four representatives handed over a memorandum to the Swedish Embassy to state their disapproval of (far-right Danish-Swedish politician Rasmus) Paludan's actions," said PAS Youth information chief Nazir Helmi.
The protesters at the front carried a giant banner reading "We are against and reject Islamophobia" and marched to shouts of "Allahu Akbar (God is great)".
The marchers also carried banners calling for action to be taken against Paludan.
Crowd-control teams from PAS' Unit Amal were on hand to ensure that traffic was not disrupted and the protesters were orderly.
PAS leaders also gave rousing speeches lambasting Paludan's action and the Swedish government's inaction against him for burning the Quran in front of the Turkiye embassy in Stockholm last Saturday.
Earlier, the police had cordoned off the front of the Swedish embassy in anticipation of the protest.
Dozens of policemen in uniform and in plainclothes were also on hand to monitor the march, which ended at about 3pm.
Earlier, this morning at about 11am, a group of Muslim NGOs also handed over another memorandum to the Swedish embassy to protest against the same matter.
The group of about 100 people were headed by Malaysian Consultative Council for Islamic Organisations representative Azmi Abdul Hamid, Alliance of Global Mosques Defending Al-Aqsa head Datuk Seri Ahmad Awang and PKR international bureau representative Fakhrurazi Mokhtar.
Malaysia has officially condemned the act by Paludan and called upon the Swedish government to not tolerate such provocation by far-right politicians.
On Thursday (Jan 26), Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had stated that while the government has acted very early on before Islamist party PAS condemned the burning of the Quran act, PAS is nevertheless free to hold their protests against the burning of the Quran without any chaos.
"They have a right to do that. There is no issue to express their views.
"If PAS wants to do it, they can do it. But we as a government have done our part. We called the ambassador and made it very clear that our statement is very strong.
"They (PAS) came later, but we have nothing against them expressing their views," he said.
