Wed 28 June 2023:
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Wednesday that another incident of Quran burning in Sweden was unacceptable and accused the Stockholm authorities of “complicity in a crime.”
Earlier in the day, media reported that the Swedish police allowed a protest action featuring the burning of a Quran near the main mosque in Stockholm on the first day of Eid al-Adha, one of islam’s major holidays.
“I curse the despicable act committed against our Holy Book, the Holy Quran, on the first day of Eid al-Adha,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Twitter.
“It is unacceptable to allow these anti-Islamic actions under the pretext of freedom of expression.
“Turning a blind eye to such atrocious acts is to be complicit,” he added.
In Stockholm, Sweden, on the first day of Eid al-Adha, a person named Salwan Momika, of Iraqi origin, accompanied by police protection, burned the Holy Quran in front of a mosque.
Does Sweden have laws on hate crime or rabble-rousing?
— Aceu™ (@AceJaceu) June 28, 2023
Salwan Momika, 37, who fled from Iraq to Sweden several years ago, had asked police for permission to burn the Muslim holy book “to express my opinion about the Quran.”
Ahead of the protest, Momika told news agency TT he also wanted to highlight the importance of freedom of speech.
Momika stomped on the Quran, put strips of bacon in it, and set pages on fire before slamming it shut, and kicked it while waving Swedish flags.
In April, the Stockholm Administrative Court ruled that the Stockholm police’s refusal to issue a permit for the Quran burnings near the Iraqi and Turkish embassies was unfounded. The police later appealed the decision in court.
A burning of the Muslim holy book outside Turkey’s embassy in January led to weeks of protests, calls for a boycott of Swedish goods and further stalled Sweden’s NATO membership bid.
Similar acts have in the past sparked violent protests and outrage across the Muslim world.
Ankara took particular offence that police had authorized the January demonstration.
Turkey has blocked Sweden’s NATO bid due to what it perceives as Stockholm’s failure to crack down on Kurdish groups it considers “terrorists.”
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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