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Pakistan has taken up the "despicable act" of desecration of the Holy Quran in Florida with the United Nations, and urged it to take urgent steps to promote inter-faith harmony in the wake of increasing acts of Islamophobia.
In a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Pakistan's Permanent Representative Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon voiced his country's strong condemnation of the burning of the Islamic holy book, and expressed "profound regret and deep concern" at the growing trend of Islamophobia, intolerance and hatred towards Muslims as well as insults to their religious symbols and personalities.
Controversial American pastor Terry Jones, who last year cancelled a plan to burn copies of the Koran to mark the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States after international condemnation, oversaw the burning of a copy of the Quran at his small Florida church on Sunday after the Islamic revered book was put on trial.