Since April 2022, Sweden is witnessing riots and protests primarily around the burning of the religious text Quran. Most recently, Salwan Momika, from Iraq burnt a copy of the Quran on June 28, outside Stockholm’s central mosque.
The burning of the religious text occurred following the go-ahead given by a Swedish court and coincided with the beginning of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha (Bakrid).
Momika said he wanted to burn the Quran to protest against the Muslim religion, rather than to protest against Sweden joining Nato.
“We are going to say ‘wake up Sweden. This is democracy and it will be in danger if they say we can’t do it’, We are not fighting against Muslims, but against their thoughts. We are not against Muslims, we are on their side,” he said.
Amid all the news and reports about the permission by the court for the burning of the religious text, let us take you through a little background.
Here is why people are burning copies of Quran in the country
Rasmus Paludan is a Danish-Swedish politician and head of the Hard Line party, who has been known for staging similar events (Quran burning) in the past. His views have been characterized as anti-Islamic, and he has called for the deportation of Muslims from Western society.
He has previously been convicted for hate speech and defamation in Denmark and was previously banned from entering Sweden for his role in inciting the 2020 Sweden riots. However, after receiving Swedish citizenship through his father, he could not be banned from entering the country which allowed him to continue his activities in Sweden.
Sweden has 810,000 Muslims, primarily from immigration. Sweden’s immigration policy has been criticized for failing to integrate immigrants, and there has been conflict between Muslims and the country’s police force. Some Muslims felt outraged by the Quran burnings and associated rallies but such rallies and protests have only risen in the past.
According to Paludan, the purpose of the Quran burnings was to protest the Swedish government’s inability to integrate immigrants into Swedish society and defend freedom of expression.
Who is Rasmus Paludan?
Paludan’s father is a Swedish national and he first came to public attention in 2017 when he started making anti-Muslim YouTube videos. He justified his stunts in Denmark, such as burning the Muslim religious book, sometimes wrapped in bacon as a tribute to free speech.
“The enemy is Islam and Muslims. The best thing would be if there were not a single Muslim left on this Earth, then we would have reached our final goal,” he said in a December 2018 video.
However, Paludan has nothing to do with the recent incident of burning by Momika.
Why did the police give permission to Salwan Momika?
Police in February banned Momika from burning the Quran outside Iraq’s embassy on the grounds that doing so risked causing a public disturbance, as happened across Sweden in Easter 2022. It also banned an anti-Nato group from burning the book.
But in April, an administrative court overturned the ban, ruling that the right to assembly and the right to protest are both protected under Sweden’s constitutional laws, unless they pose a concrete security threat.
“The opportunities available to refuse permission for a public gathering are very limited. The administrative court does not consider that the threat presented as the basis for the Police Authority’s decision to deny the permits is sufficiently concrete and connected to the gathering in question,” Eva-Lotta Hedin, a lawyer, told the local media.
This meant that the police had no justification for stopping the protest.
“The permission for today’s gathering has been given out in consideration of the fact that the Court of Appeal has rejected those decisions,” Helena Boström Thomas, a police spokesperson, told media. “The basic rule is that an application for permission to hold a public event should in general be accepted.”
Momika is now being investigated by police on two counts: possible hate crimes, because it took place outside a mosque, and breaking Stockholm’s current ban on lighting fires (there’s a fire ban in place due to the current tinder-dry conditions sparking a risk of wildfires).
The way Swedish freedom of expression laws work means that police can’t preemptively stop a protest from going ahead because they suspect someone might break the law (by for example lighting a fire in spite of a fire ban), but the person can be charged with a criminal offence afterwards.
What did Swedish authorities say?
The court had said that there must be a clear connection between security problems and the planned gathering. Police deemed this to not be the case, according to Swedish broadcaster TV4.
“The security risks and consequences that the authorities can see connected to a Quran burning are not of such a nature that according to the current law they give grounds for a decision to reject a request for a general gathering,” the court said.
“Police authorities, therefore, give you permission for the requested gathering,” it added.
What was the reaction to the Quran burning?
At least at the time of writing, the burning of the Quran in central Stockholm on Wednesday did not cause anything like the level of disruption caused in Easter 2022, when a series of Quran burnings carried out by the Danish extremist Rasmus Paludan in areas with high immigrant population led to riots across Sweden.
A journalist from the Swedish local media (TT) estimated that only around 200 people attended the burning, with one woman saying the Lord’s Prayer and waving around a cross, one man being seized by police and those supporting the burnings shouting at those supporting the mosque.
Outside the mosque, elderly Muslim men stood, pleading with younger Muslims not to be provoked.
“Just go inside the mosque, don’t give him any attention. The Quran is in your hearts,” one said.
Morocco swiftly recalled its ambassador in response to the incident.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called the burning of the pages of the Islamic holy book “despicable.”
“It is unacceptable to allow these anti-Islamic actions under the pretext of freedom of expression,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan wrote on Twitter. “Turning a blind eye to such atrocious acts is to be complicit.”
What happened last time the Quran was burned?
The decision by the Danish extremist Rasmus Paludan to burn the Quran outside the Turkish embassy at the end of January led to Sweden’s talks with Turkey’s government over Nato membership being put on hold, and Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said that his country will not back Sweden’s membership of Nato unless burning copies of the Quran is made illegal.
Despite the ongoing opposition from Turkey and the repeated burning of Qurans, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson was still adamant that Sweden would be able to join NATO.
“Sweden will become a NATO member,” he said in an interview with SVT, albeit accepting that it might not happen by the time NATO meets for its next big summit in Vilnius.
“We’ve also said that we respect that it is Turkey that makes Turkish decisions and it is good we now have another meeting … and maybe we can address the odd question mark ahead of the Vilnius summit in that kind of conversation,” Kristersson said.
“It’s legal but not appropriate,” he added.
Comments