Denmark and Sweden study "restricting" the burning of the Koran in front of embassies

The governments of Denmark and Sweden are analyzing the possibility of “restricting” the controversial burning of the Qur'an and prohibiting those held before foreign embassies, amid protests from the Islamic world over the repeated desecrations of the Muslim holy book.

The right to freedom of expression also contemplates criticism of religions “but burning a Koran or Torah in front of a foreign embassy cannot be understood in any other way than a mockery,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said through from your Twitter account.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson also said on Instagram on Sunday that he is “in close contact” with his Danish counterpart, Mette Frederiksen, to take joint action against the Koran burnings.

“We are facing the most serious security situation since World War II and there are certain actors, be they states or individuals, willing to take advantage of it,” Kristersson said, via Instragran.

Kristersson himself warned at the end of last week of the high-risk situation in the face of new calls to desecrate the Muslim holy book announced for the beginning of this week.

Since mid-July there have been strong protests in the Islamic world against actions of this type carried out both in Sweden and Denmark in front of mosques or in front of the Iraqi embassy.

The most virulent response came in Baghdad, when hundreds of protesters stormed and burned down the Swedish embassy in protest at the summons of an Iraqi refugee, who announced a Koran burning in Stockholm.

In the end, he did not go so far as to burn the holy book, but instead kicked and desecrated it right in front of the embassy of his country of origin amid considerable media coverage and protests by groups of protesters, mainly Muslims.

The action of this Iraqi refugee, welcomed by Sweden since 2019, follows other similar actions carried out both in Denmark and in other Nordic countries by the Swedish-Danish neo-Nazi Rasmus Paludan.

Both the Stockholm and Copenhagen governments have repeatedly expressed their condemnation of these acts, but recalling that they are protected by the right to freedom of expression anchored in their respective Constitutions.

Particularly complex is the situation of Sweden, whose entry into NATO is still pending ratification by the Turkish Parliament, which is expected to take place in the autumn.

At the last NATO summit in Vilnius (Lithuania), Kristersson and the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced the end of the blockade on the entry of the Nordic country by Turkey, which for months had denied its ratification.

One of the objections raised by Ankara was that Sweden hosts Kurdish opponents and terrorists on its territory, as well as alleged enemies of Islam.

Turkey, along with Jordan, Iraq and other majority-Muslim countries, has protested police-authorized desecrations of the holy book and called on Stockholm and Copenhagen to ban them.