Sweden and Denmark do not stop burning the Koran. Why?

Activists against Islam in Sweden and Denmark have recently burned or damaged several copies of the Koran book of Muslims. The latest vandalism occurred on September 3rd in the town of Malmo, Sweden, and was performed by Salwan Momika. The event has been followed by violent clashes between angry protesters and police, which has arrested at least ten of them.

Momika is refugee from Iraq, which says she opposes the entire institution of Islam. He has burned several copies of the sacred book in recent months. Similar shares have been carried out by other extreme right activists, both in Sweden and Denmark. And the common theme of all of them is that Muslims don't belong to Europe, much less Nordic countries.

The governments of many predominantly Muslim countries have condemned acts of profaning the Koran in the harshest terms.

In mid-July, hundreds of people have attacked the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad, setting fire to some parts of it. Iraq has also expelled the Swedish ambassador and instructed his Iraqi counterpart to withdraw from the embassy in Stockholm.

Turkey's President, Recep Tayip Erdogan, has said his country will not support Sweden's NATO membership until Stockholm addresses the issue of burning the Koran.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatolah Ali Khamenei, has called on Sweden to hand over Momika and other Koran burners to the “judicial systems of Islamic countries”.

Developments have raised the alarm in the country, which traditionally has seen itself as the humility of minorities. Swedish security service, SAPO, has said that burning copies of the Koran and deinformation campaigns have transformed Sweden's image “from a tolerant country to a hostile country towards Islam and Muslims”.

The security police are now dealing with continued threats of attacks against Sweden and Sweden's interests. As a result, the terror alert rises to the second highest level”, SAPO announced last month.

Sweden is one of the countries with the greatest protection of freedom of expression. Its constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression on any subject, including “the procrastination of thoughts that challenge religious messages or that may be perceived as harmful to the believer”

The Swedish government has named them “lamophobic” the desecrations of the Koran and has said they do not reflect its attitudes. But a group of Swedish writers has said that this “reaction is extremely inappropriate” and that it does not match freedom of expression.

Like Sweden, Denmark is among the most secular and liberal countries in the world. Sweden has abolished the law of blasphemy in 1970 and Denmark in 2017. Governments in both countries thus have no legal means to prevent the desecration of the Koran or any other sacred book. However, they have said they are considering ways to stop, or at least limit, such acts in public places.

Why this concern or review of the attitude now? To Radio Explosion Free Europe Programme responds Dino Krause, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies:

Danish <x0). On the one hand, the burning of the Koran has led to considerable diplomatic consequences from various governments in predominantly Muslim countries... On the other hand, the danger of security exists because the burning of the Koran has led to threats and calls for violence by a host of Islamic actors. Even Al Qaeda issued an unusual statement calling for attacks on Danish and Swedish targets”.

Mohammad Fazlhasher, professor of Islamic Theology at Upsala University in Sweden, tells of the prosecution that stopping the burning of the Koran would not be a solution.

“... because Rasmussen Paludan, one of the activists who burned the Koran, said in an interview that if the Koran is prohibited, he will urinate on it or desecrate it in any other way. So I don't think the problem is burning the Koran. The problem is how some publicists, politicians, media and cultural representatives advocate the burning of the Koran on behalf of freedom of expression”, Fazlhashem says.

He adds that the Swedish government does not publicly endorse these positions, but that different political figures do so. He does not mention specific names, but members of the Swedish Democrats have openly reacted with contempt towards Muslims.

“ “It is strange and ridiculous that they are allowed to lecture us on democracy and freedom of expression”, he said.

Fazlhasher, from Uppsala University, says Swedish legislation cannot be described as Islamic, but he mentions a report by the Swedish National Council on Crime Prevention of 2021, which says that Islamic crimes take different forms and cannot be limited to a certain person.

Asked how the Koran's burning question should be addressed, Fazlhasey says:

If more politicians, cultural representatives and publicists condemn the burning of the Koran and send a message to the Muslim community that we are with you, we are not against you, we support you... let them burn the Koran as long as they want. But we don't have that kind of attitude from politicians or publicists”.

There are many who say we should not give up or retreat because dictators in Muslim countries demand it. But I disagree, because if you have this problem, they will use it for internal or international purposes. We need to talk to the Muslim community here in Sweden. If we send the right signal to him, I don't think he's going to be so sensitive to this case”, Fazlhashem says.

The head of the Islamic Federation of Sweden, Mahmoud Khalfii, has said that the efforts of Islamic organisations to negotiate with the Swedish government have met in silence.

“You have to answer all of this with something concrete. Send a signal to the world that we take this seriously and we'll solve it”, Khalfi said.

Dino Krasue, of the Danish Institute for International Studies, says that Koran burns have been instrumentalised by the governments of some predominantly Muslim countries, which present them as orchestrated by the Danish government, despite the fact that Danish authorities, according to him, do not have legal means to prevent such vandalism.

This type of discurs has created the false image of a state plot against Islam. But, in fact, it's just a very small number of individuals burning the Koran”, says Krause.

In Sweden, for example, a survey conducted recently by the public broadcaster STV, has shown that most citizens -- 53 percent -- oppose burning sacred books, such as the Koran and the Bible; 34% have said such acts should be allowed, while 13% have expressed indecisive.

In other European countries, such as Germany, Italy, Poland and Finland, libels against one religion are criminal acts. In England and Wales, the laws of blasphemy have been abolished in 2008, but the profaning of the Koran and other sacred writings may be condemned to the law against inciting religious hatred.

Sweden's Prime Minister, Wolf Cristersson, has said that the security situation in his country has been at the most serious level since World War II. But, according to Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom's words, “rapid solutions do not have”.