He said immediate action must be taken against the politician, Rasmus Paludan, to check what he called an alarming rise of Islamophobia in Sweden.

Paludan, a Swedish-Danish politician from the far-right party Stram Kurs, burned the holy book at a demonstration held in front of the Turkish embassy in the Swedish capital yesterday.

Following the incident, the Turkish government summoned the Swedish ambassador to express its disappointment. The action also drew the condemnation of various Muslim-majority countries.

“Such a blatant defilement of Islam’s holy book by the Swedish politician and the inaction are tantamount to fomenting Islamophobia and constitutes a grave provocation to the sensitivities of not just Turkey but more than two billion Muslims in the world,” Anwar said in a statement.

He said Malaysia denounces the repeated hate crimes facing Muslims worldwide and expresses its concerns about the rising tide of hate speech based on faith or ethnicity.

Anwar also called upon the international community to reject race or religious baiting under the guise of freedom of expression and to remain united against all forms of incitement to hate and violence.