On May 1, former kickboxer and social media influencer Andrew Tate who recently converted to Islam, challenged people to desecrate the Quran. He was irked by a video from SatanCon 2023 where a Satanist tore down Bible pages and chanted ‘hail Satan’. Tate said, “Try the Quran if you’re so brave :)”. The emoji he used at the end of the tweet gave the impression that he wanted to say if anyone tried the same with Quran, he or she would not be spared. However, it did not go well with the netizens.
Social media users accepted the “challenge” by Tate and started posting photographs and videos desecrating the Quran. They trended #AndrewTateQuranChallenge to post on the media. There were images of burnt Quran, pork and bacon placed on the open Quran, the holy book in the mouth of a pig and other derogatory imagery against the Quran.
SatanCon 2023
For those who are unaware, SatanCon is a formal ceremony that ‘renounces’ symbols of oppression by ripping up a Bible and a ‘Thin Blue Line’ flag that represents police. The video that Tate quoted showed a woman tearing up Quran and chanting ‘Hail Satan’. SatanCon 2023 was a three-day event that took place in Boston, USA. It was hosted at the Marriott Copley Place by the Satanic Temple. The event marked the 10-year anniversary of the Temple.
Andrew Tate converted to Islam
In December 2022, Andrew Tate, a former Orthodox Christian embraced Islam. Since then, his Muslim fan base has increased exponentially. Tate was arrested and jailed in Romania as part of a human trafficking and rape investigation. Tate’s residence in Bucharest, where he was held alongside his brother Tristan, was raided by the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT).
Interestingly, Tate was detained by the authorities, who seemingly tracked his social media accounts to discover his location after he engaged in a verbal brawl with Swedish environment activist Greta Thunberg. Thunberg mocked Andrew Tate recently when the kickboxer included her in a tweet boasting about the significant emissions produced by his huge automobile collection. In response to his tweet, Greta Thunberg took the ‘small d*ck energy’ jibe at Andrew Tate.
Later on December 28, Tate took to Twitter to post a 2-minute video mocking Thunberg over her previous tweet. The kickboxer in the video could be seen enjoying cigars and Pizza from ‘Jerry’s Pizza’, a Romanian restaurant chain. Several social media accounts and media reports claim that the box of Pizza displayed in Tate’s video helped authorities ascertain that he was in Romania, which certainly led to his arrest.
Previous incidents of Quran burning
There have been several incidents in the past where Quran was desecrated or burnt. In January 2023, Dutch leader Edwin Wagensveld of the far-right group Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA) destroyed a copy of the Quran in the Netherlands before setting it on fire.
The incident occurred just a few days after a copy o Quran was burnt in Sweden during a protest against Turkey. A copy of the Quran was reportedly burnt in Sweden during protests against Turkey outside Turkish Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden. Rasmus Paludan, the leader of the Danish far-right political party Hard Line, was the one who burnt the copy of the Quran.
