A copy of the Quran was burnt in Illinois by a 16-year-old high school student, and rights organisations say it raises concerns about the India-based Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) paramilitary organisation’s influence in the US.
While the incident took place in June in Naperville, a suburb of Chicago, the video was recently posted to social media. In the video, a boy used a lighter to burn a Quran while standing in a field of grass. Once the Quran was on fire, he threw it on the ground.
India is home to 200 million Muslims but hatred is growing against religious minorities and is being fuelled by Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism, fuelled by the RSS, which aims to turn India into a Hindu state.
The incident in Naperville is likely to have taken place around the same time as the Quran burning in Sweden, which led to thousands of people across the world protesting the burning of the Quran.
In July, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning the burning of the Quran as a religious hate act.
This story was originally published in middleeasteye.net. Read the full story here