As Muslims celebrate the Eid holiday today, a man tore up and burned a Qur’an outside Stockholm’s main mosque, a move that would enrage Turkey given Sweden’s NATO membership application. This happened after Swedish police gave the protest’s organizer permission to carry out the protest.
Police eventually filed charges against the man for inciting hatred against a national or ethnic group.
Sweden has outraged Ankara, whose support it needs to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with a series of protests against Islam and in support of Kurdish rights.
After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Sweden applied to join NATO. However, the procedure has been slowed down since Turkey, an alliance member, has demanded the extradition of those it believes to be terrorists from Sweden.
In a tweet, the foreign minister of Turkey, Hakan Fidan, denounced the incident and said it was wrong to permit anti-Islamic demonstrations in the guise of freedom of expression.
A copy of the Qur’an was torn up by one of the two organizers, who then used it to wipe his shoes and placed bacon inside before burning the book on fire in front of some 200 spectators as the other protester spoke into a megaphone.
In opposition to the burning, several people chanted in Arabic, “God is great,” and one man was apprehended by police after attempting to throw a rock.
When the holy book started burning, a protester yelled, “Let it burn!”
Police accused the guy who burned the Qur’an with agitation against a national or ethnic group after the incident and with violating a fire ban that has been in effect in Stockholm since mid-June.
While Swedish police have recently turned down multiple requests for anti-Qur’anic protests, courts have overturned those judgments, claiming they violated the right to free speech.
At a press conference today, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he would not speculate on how the demonstration may effect Sweden’s Nato process.
“It’s legal but not appropriate,” he added, adding that the police should decide whether or not to prosecute somebody for burning a Qur’an.
Salwan Momika, one of the two participants, described himself as an Iraqi immigrant who wants to outlaw the Qur’an in a recent newspaper interview.
Mahmoud Khalfi, the mosque’s director and imam, stated today that representatives of the mosque were unhappy by the police decision to allow the demonstration to take place on the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.
According to the legislation, the mosque asked the police to at least move the rally to another location, but they declined, according to Khalfi.
Khalfi estimates that up to 10,000 people attend the annual Eid celebrations at the mosque in Stockholm.
After a Danish far-right politician set fire to a copy of the Qur’an close to the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, Turkey abruptly stopped discussions with Sweden about joining the alliance. This occurred in late January.
