A man tore up and burned a Quran (Koran) outside Stockholm’s central mosque on Wednesday, an event that risks angering Turkey as Sweden bids to join NATO, after Swedish police granted permission for the protest to take place.
A series of demonstrations in Sweden against Islam and for Kurdish rights have offended Ankara, whose backing Sweden needs to gain entry to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
An Iraqi refugee in Sweden, Salwan Momika, stated that he intended to burn the Islamic book as a way to express his personal viewpoint regarding its content.
“This is democracy. It is in danger if they tell us we can’t do this,” Momika told Swedish news agency TT prior to carrying out the act.
Swedish police said they have granted a permit for a protest where the organiser plans to burn a Quran outside Stockholm’s main mosque on Wednesday, the start of the Muslim three-day Eid al-Adha holiday.
The police said in the written decision that the security risks associated with the burning “were not of a nature that could justify, under current laws, a decision to reject the request.”
The green light came two weeks after a Swedish appeals court rejected the police’s decision to deny permits for two demonstrations in Stockholm which were to include Koran burnings.
Police had at the time cited security concerns, following a burning of the Muslim holy book outside Turkey’s embassy in January which led to weeks of protests, calls for a boycott of Swedish goods and further stalled Sweden’s NATO membership bid.
Some 200 onlookers witnessed one of the two organisers tearing up pages of a copy of the Quran and wiping his shoes with it before putting bacon in it and setting the book on fire, whilst the other protestor spoke into a megaphone.
Some of those present shouted ‘God is great’ in Arabic to protest against the burning, and one man was detained by police after he attempted to throw a rock.
A supporter of the demonstration shouted “let it burn” as the holy book caught on fire.
‘Burn it’
In granting the new protest permit, police said that “in light of this judgement,” the “security risks and consequences” it expected in connection with the protests were not enough to warrant them denying the request.
The request for the Wednesday demonstration was made by the same private individual who had his previous request blocked.
“I want to protest in front of the large mosque in Stockholm, and I want to express my opinion about the Quran… I will tear up the Koran and burn it,” Salwan Momika, 37, wrote in the application, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.
Speaking to newspaper Aftonbladet in April, Momika — who fled to Sweden from Iraq — said his intention had not been to sabotage the Swedish NATO bid, and had considered waiting to stage his protest until after Sweden had joined the alliance.
“I don’t want to harm this country that received me and preserved my dignity,” Momika told the newspaper.
Police said Wednesday they had called in reinforcements from across the country to maintain order.
An AFP correspondent said several police cars were already parked near the mosque early Wednesday.
Swedish police had granted a permit for the January protest, which was organised by Rasmus Paludan, a Swedish-Danish activist who has already been convicted for racist abuse.
Paludan also provoked rioting in Sweden last year when he went on a tour of the country and publicly burned copies of Islam’s holy book.
Swedish politicians have criticised Quran burnings, but have also adamantly defended the right to freedom of expression.
A Kurdish refugee in Sweden told Ekurd Daily on condition of anonymity “a book that advocates for killing, terrorism, fascism, and violence against non-Muslim nations should not be regarded with respect.”
Sweden sought NATO membership in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. But alliance member Turkey has held up the process, accusing Sweden of harbouring people it considers terrorists and demanding their extradition.
Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan condemned the act in a tweet on Wednesday.
While Swedish police have rejected several recent applications for anti-Quran demonstrations, courts have overruled those decisions, saying they infringed on freedom of speech.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said at a press conference on Wednesday he would not speculate about how the protest could affect Sweden’s NATO process.
“It’s legal but not appropriate,” he said, adding that it was up to the police to make decisions on Quran burnings.
One of the two people who took part is Salwan Momika, who in a recent newspaper interview described himself as an Iraqi refugee seeking to ban the Quran.
Representatives of the mosque were disappointed by the police decision to grant permission for the protest on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, mosque director and Imam Mahmoud Khalfi said on Wednesday.
“The mosque suggested to the police to at least divert the demonstration to another location, which is possible by law, but they chose not to do so,” Khalfi said in a statement.
Up to 10,000 visitors attend Stockholm’s mosque for the Eid celebrations every year, according to Khalfi.
Turkey in late January suspended talks with Sweden on its NATO application after a Danish far-right politician burned a copy of the Quran near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.
Turkish President Erdogan conveyed to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg during a recent phone conversation that Sweden must put an end to the demonstrations held by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) supporters in Stockholm if it wishes to proceed with its NATO membership aspirations.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan for the Kurdish minority who make over 22.5 million of the country’s 82-million population. The conflict has claimed the lives of over 40,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish guerrillas.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974 and currently serving a life sentence on a prison island off Istanbul after being captured by Turkish agents in Kenya in 1999, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
Morocco reacts
Morocco has recalled its ambassador from Sweden for indefinite consultations after the burning of the Muslim holy book Quran in Stockholm, the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday in a statement.
According to media reports, the Swedish government authorized a demonstration outside the Stockholm Mosque at the Medborgarplatsen square in the Swedish capital on Wednesday, the first day of Eid al-Adha, one of the most celebrated festivals on the Islamic calendar.
During the demonstration, a person identified as Salwan Momika came in front of the mosque, threw the Quran on the ground, stepped on it, uttered insulting words against Islam, and set the book on fire, said the media reports.
Morocco has also summoned Sweden’s charge d’affaires in Rabat, who was informed of Morocco’s “most vigorous condemnation of this offense and rejection of this unacceptable act,” the statement said.
“This offensive and irresponsible act disregards the feelings of more than a billion Muslims during this sacred period of the great pilgrimage to Mecca and the blessed feast of Eid al-Adha,” it added.
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