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Two protesters burned pages torn from a Quran exterior Sweden’s parliament in Stockholm Monday, the third such demonstration in current weeks and the primary for the reason that nation’s prime minister warned that demonstrations involving the desecration of Islam’s holy e book had been making Sweden an even bigger goal for terrorism.
On Monday, two males — Salwan Momika and Salwan Najem — kicked and stomped on a Quran earlier than setting some pages from the e book alight, French information company AFP reported. Momika, a Christian Iraqi refugee, and Najem beforehand burned a duplicate of the Quran in June whereas standing exterior Stockholm’s Grand Mosque on the day of Eid-ul-Adha, crucial non secular pageant on the Muslim calendar.
Momika, who sought political asylum in Sweden just a few years in the past, additionally staged one other protest in July at which he stomped on a Quran and used the Iraqi flag to wipe his footwear exterior Iraq’s embassy within the Swedish capital.
The 2 earlier protests sparked outrage in Muslim nations and drew protests usually geared toward Swedish embassies.
Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson mentioned final week that he was “deeply involved” as extra requests had been being submitted to Sweden’s police for permission to carry anti-Muslim protests involving Quran desecration.
The prime minister advised Sweden’s TT information company that the Swedish Safety Service had decided that, whereas the nation had lengthy been thought of a “reliable” goal for terror assaults by militant teams and lone actors impressed by them, it was now being “prioritized” as a goal.
Freedom of speech is protected beneath Sweden’s structure and police can solely refuse a protest allow if “there have been critical public disturbances or a substantial hazard for contributors at a earlier gathering of an identical variety,” in response to pointers on the web site for Swedish police authorities.
Anger over the protests boiled over in Iraq, the place scores of indignant demonstrators have twice stormed Sweden’s embassy. The federal government in Baghdad formally reduce diplomatic ties with Sweden and a number of other different Muslim majority nations across the globe have summoned Swedish ambassadors of their capitals to lodge formal complaints.
Iran’s response to the Quran burning protests has included thinly veiled threats from the Islamic republic’s highest authority.
In a social media submit final week, Iran’s “Supreme Chief” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei mentioned the “insult to the Holy Quran in Sweden is a bitter, conspiratorial, harmful occasion. It’s the opinion of all Islamic students that those that have insulted the Holy Quran deserve the severest punishment.”
The Group of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was convening an emergency virtual meeting Monday to deal with the desecration of the Quran in each Sweden and Denmark, the place comparable protests have additionally been staged in current weeks.
On Sunday, Denmark’s high diplomat Lars Løkke Rasmussen mentioned the Danish authorities would search to make it unlawful to desecrate the Quran or another non secular textual content in entrance of international embassies amid backlash from the Islamic group, The Related Press reported.
Sweden’s chief, Kristersson, mentioned in an announcement issued Sunday that his nation and Denmark had been “in probably the most critical safety state of affairs for the reason that Second World Conflict, and as for Sweden, we’re conscious that states and state-like actors are actively exploiting the state of affairs.”
The prime minister referred to as the state of affairs “harmful” and mentioned new measures can be obligatory “to strengthen our resilience.”
“In Sweden, we’ve already began analyzing the authorized state of affairs,” he mentioned, “with the aim of exploring the scope for measures that might strengthen our nationwide safety and the safety of Swedes in Sweden and overseas.”
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