Manama: Saudi Arabia is cancelling a scheduled Czech-Saudi forum and suspending the participation of any Saudi from the public or private sectors in its activities in protest against anti-Islam statements and stances by officials in the Czech Republic.

The cancellation and suspension were issued in an order by King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud to the Saudi foreign ministry, local daily Al Watan reported on Wednesday.

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Sources said the Council of Saudi Chambers had received directives from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry not to hold the forum.

The decision will be reviewed only after the situation is properly addressed, the sources added.

Czech President Miloš Zeman has waded into controversy with Muslims after he issued statements in which he strongly linked Islam with violence and anti-civilisation.

However, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), refuted the allegations.

“The Czech President’s statements on Islam are in line with the statements the President made in the past, where he linked believers in the Quran with anti-Semitic and racist Nazis and said that the enemy is anti-civilization spreading from North Africa to Indonesia, where two billion people live,” OIC Secretary General Eyad Madani said. “Such statements not only show President Zeman’s lack of knowledge and misunderstanding of Islam, but also ignore the historical facts that anti-Semitism and Nazism are a European phenomenon through and through. They have no roots in Islam, neither as a religion nor as a history or civilization. The Holocaust did not take place in the area from North Africa to Indonesia,” Madani said.

President Zeman has refused to apologise for his statement.

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