Police approve demonstration
The Torah and Bible are to be burned in Stockholm
07/14/2023, 8:31 p.m
When a Koran is burned in front of a mosque in Stockholm, some Arab states summon their ambassadors. Now the police in the Swedish capital are allowing another controversial demonstration. This time a Torah and a Bible are to be burned.
Following the public burning of a copy of the Koran in Sweden two weeks ago, the Stockholm police have authorized a demonstration to burn the sacred texts of Jews and Christians. This was announced by the police. At the gathering on Saturday in front of the Israeli embassy, the Torah, which is holy to the Jews, and the Christian Bible are to be burned.
However, police spokeswoman Carina Skagerlind said the permit does not refer to an official request to burn the Torah and the Bible in public. Rather, the police authorized a meeting at which an “opinion” was to be expressed. This is “an important difference”.
In their registration for the demonstration, however, the organizers announced that copies of the Torah and the Bible would be burned. They explained that the action was a reaction to the burning of the Koran and an expression of freedom of expression.
The approval immediately met with fierce criticism in Israel and among Jewish organizations. Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he “strongly condemned the burning of sacred books.” The head of the World Zionist Organization, Yaakov Hagoel, declared that the police permit was “not freedom of expression, but anti-Semitism”.
Ham strips in the Koran
At the end of June, the Swedish authorities approved an action by an Iraqi who had fled to Sweden, which triggered violent protests in the Muslim world. On the first day of the Islamic Festival of Sacrifice, 37-year-old Salwan Momika stepped on a copy of the Koran several times in front of the main mosque in Stockholm, while waving the Swedish flag. He then stuck strips of ham, which Muslims consider unclean, into the book and burned a few pages from it.
The police justified their approval of this action with freedom of expression. However, she later launched an investigation into “incitement against an ethnic group” because Momika carried out the cremation so close to the mosque.
Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco then summoned the Swedish ambassadors. The Swedish government also condemned the burning as “Islamophobic”. At the same time, however, she pointed out that there was a “constitutionally protected right to freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and demonstration” in the country.