Quran desecration in Greece was meant to harm public peace, says Turkish minority’s religious leader

The desecration of a Quran by a French national in Greece’s Western Thrace region this week was meant to disturb public peace in the region, said one of the Turkish minority’s elected religious leaders on Friday.

In his Friday sermon at a mosque in the village of Ilica Kaplicalar (Ano Thermai) in the Iskece (Xanthi) province, where the provocative act took place, elected Mufti Mustafa Trampa stressed that harming human dignity and attacking sacred values cannot be regarded as freedom.

Also stressing that freedom is about respecting everyone's beliefs and thoughts, he said opposing such attacks is a common duty of all people, not just Muslims.

On Thursday, representatives of the region's local Turkish minority said a French national had torn a copy of the Quran.

The suspect was taken to the local police station, and the provocative act was strongly condemned by prominent figures of the Turkish minority and associations as well as the Greek Religious Affairs and Education Ministry.

The majority of Greece's ethnic Turkish minority, some 150,000 strong, live in Western Thrace, which borders Bulgaria to the north, Türkiye to the east, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Greek region of Macedonia to the west.​​​​​​​