Here Are Important Incidents Exposing Sweden’s Hypocritical Policies

The Islamic world did not calm down after the Swedish authorities allowed the Danish extremist Rasmus Paludan to burn the Noble Quran in front of the Turkish embassy building in Stockholm on January 21, 2023.

Muslims’ anger has grown amid the Swedish government’s successive provocations against Muslims.

The most recent incident was when Sweden refused to give permission to a 36-year-old man to burn a copy of the Torah in front of the Israeli embassy in Stockholm on January 7, 2023.

The man of Arab origin said he did not intend to actually burn the Torah and explained: “Burning the holy books is disgusting, but I am angry, and I am doing this for provocation.”

This raises a number of controversies about human rights and freedom of opinion and expression within the Scandinavian country, and also reveals Swedish double standards toward Muslims and the Islamic religion, while the rest of the rights and religions are fully protected.

Sweden, which criminalizes denial of the Holocaust against the Jews, prohibits the rejection of homosexuality and refuses to burn the Torah, yet allows extreme right-wing parties such as the Hard Line Party to burn a copy of the Quran and to undermine Islamic rituals and sanctities.

 

Coleman Exposes Them

The Israeli ambassador in Stockholm, Ziv Nevo Kulman, was the one who exposed the double standards of the Swedish authorities, as he revealed that “Israel” and the local Jewish community in Sweden had prevented the burning of the Torah in front of the Tel Aviv embassy building, in coordination with Swedish officials.

He said on Twitter that the burning of the Torah was planned in front of the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, but it was prevented with the help of the Swedish authorities.

According to the Swedish Alkompis website, the police confirmed that they had received a request to gather after attempts to burn the Holy Torah on Saturday, January 28, 2023, noting that the request was rejected.

The site added that someone tried many times to obtain a permit to burn the Torah in Stockholm during the Holocaust memorable day, but he did not get any answer from the police.

This matter completely contradicted the statements of the Swedish Foreign Minister, Tobias Lennart Billstrom, on January 27, 2023, when he invoked freedom of expression in his country regarding allowing a copy of the Holy Quran to be burned in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.

During a joint press conference with Latvian public official and politician Edgars Rinkevics, he said, in response to a question about the impact of burning a copy of the Holy Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on Sweden’s accession to NATO, that he does not want to speculate on this issue.

He added that “of course there is freedom of speech in Sweden,” and this is something everyone can use.

 

Against the Law

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Twitter that he sympathized “with all Muslims who felt offended by what happened in Stockholm” and added that “freedom of expression is an essential part of democracy, but what is legal is not necessarily appropriate.”

However, Swedish law is based on Article 10 of the Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of expression and dissemination of ideas regardless of their content.

This article specifically relies on ministers and parties to justify these violations because it means that everyone is allowed to organize demonstrations and vigils in public places.

But that right is also legally inconsistent when freedom of expression is used in a way that threatens national security, offends the reputation and rights of others, or incites against ethnic groups, and so on.

This is what is stipulated in Article 17 of the Convention on Human Rights, adopted by Swedish law, that “no one may use any of the rights guaranteed by the Convention to cancel or restrict the rights of others.”

In this context, some linked the Swedish authorities’ allowing Rasmus Paludan to burn a copy of the Quran with the political dispute with Turkiye over the latter’s refusal of Sweden’s accession to NATO, which created an almost hostile situation.

However, the recent incidents of burning the Quran in Sweden debunks this claim, as the Swedish government gave the green light to such repeated behavior in a country inhabited by more than 600,000 Muslims.

On August 28, 2020, 3 activists of the Paludan Hard Line Party burned a copy of the Quran in the Swedish city of Malmo, which led to violent confrontations between the police and Muslim demonstrators rejecting the incident.

On April 14, 2022, Paludan burned a copy of the Holy Quran in Linkoping, southern Sweden, under police protection.

Violent confrontations erupted between protestors and police, resulting in the injury of 26 policemen and 14 demonstrators and the destruction of 20 police cars.

The Swedish government is led by the conservative Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who belongs to the Moderates and began his term on October 17, 2022.

He reached the position after receiving unprecedented support from the far-right party after he announced an agreement to form a coalition government that includes three parties and pledged to resolve the immigration and asylum crisis.

 

Big Lie

Islamic preacher Islam Magdy, the imam of the Islamic Center in the Swedish city of Malmo, believes that “freedom of opinion and expression and human rights in Sweden is a big lie because Muslims are now the most persecuted group here.”

He added to Al-Estiklal: “The suffering of Muslims in Sweden exceeds the burning of the Holy Quran. There are almost daily racist incidents that occur in a different way in front of the authorities, the most dangerous of which is the attack on places of worship.”

“We often find offensive drawings and phrases on the walls of mosques, as well as the desecration of cemeteries, placing crosses or Nazi slogans over Muslim graves, and destroying Quranic verses and marble over the grave.”

He stated: “However, there is no movement or law that stops these actions; in addition to that, no one in the country can reject or protest against homosexuality, it is even taught to Muslims in schools.”

He indicated that “if parents object, it is possible to easily withdraw their children and deposit them in social protection to give them to other families, even if they are not Muslims, and this only happens with Muslims.”

In Sweden, there is a law criminalizing anti-Semitism. However, there is nothing criminalizing the burning of the Bible, belonging to more than two billion people, by an extremist, racist person who adopts terrorist and incitement ideas, according to Magdy.

He concluded: “Unfortunately, in light of this situation, the phenomenon of Islamophobia will increase, and incidents of burning the Holy Quran and attacks on Muslims will recur, so the Islamic community in Sweden and Europe must be united.

“There must be broad solidarity from the Islamic world to put more pressure on those governments and to serve Muslim minorities who face an uncertain future with fear and caution.”