Iraqi man fills a Koran with bacon and burns it outside a Stockholm mosque

An Iraqi man filled a Quran with bacon and burned it Stockholm on Wednesday, an event that has enraged Turkey as Sweden applied to join NATO.

The incendiary stunt was carried out by two men outside the city’s main mosque on the first day of the Muslim three-day Eid al-Adha holiday.

About 200 spectators witnessed one of the two organizers – Salwan Momika – tearing pages from a copy of the Quran and wiping his shoes with it before putting bacon in them and setting fire to the book, while the other protester spoke into a megaphone .

Some in attendance shouted “God is great” in Arabic to protest the burning, and a man was detained by police after attempting to throw a stone. A supporter of the demonstration shouted ‘let it burn’ as the holy book caught fire.

It came after police approved a request to allow the man to continue the action, two weeks after a Swedish appeals court rejected a police ban on Quran burning protests that have sparked anger among Muslims in Sweden and across the country. abroad.

A series of demonstrations in Sweden against Islam and for Kurdish rights have offended Ankara, whose support Sweden needs to gain access to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Sweden sought NATO membership after the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year. But Turkey – a Muslim-majority country – has said Sweden harbors members of what it considers terrorist groups – a charge Sweden denies – and has demanded their extradition as a step towards ratifying Sweden’s membership.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan condemned the act in a tweet on Wednesday, writing: “I condemn the vile protest against our holy book in Sweden.”

In its permit for Wednesday’s demonstration, the police wrote that the demonstration “may have foreign policy implications,” but that the security risks and consequences of a Koran burning were not such that the application should be rejected.

Before the stunt, police said they expected only two people to participate, including the organizer, Momika, who described himself in a recent newspaper interview as an Iraqi refugee who wanted to ban the Quran.

It was feared the burning could spark unrest, with police saying they had called in reinforcements from across the country to keep order. Journalists said several police cars were already parked near the mosque on Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Wednesday that Sweden still wants to join NATO before or during the summit in Vilnius next month, although it was not certain whether it could by then.

He said at a press conference that he would not speculate on how the protest might affect Sweden’s NATO process. “It’s legal, but not appropriate,” he said, adding that it’s up to the police to make decisions about Quran burnings.

Wednesday is not the first time this year that a Quran has been burned during a public protest. In January, far-right Danish politician Stram Kurs Rasmus Paludan burned the religious book outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.

Police then banned two successive requests for protests involving Quran burnings – one by a private individual and one by an organization, outside the Turkish and Iraqi embassies in Stockholm in February.

The appeals court ruled in mid-June that police had wrongly banned it, saying that “the law and order and security problems” referred to by police had “no clear enough connection with the planned event or its immediate surroundings.”

The application for the Wednesday demonstration was made by the same private individual who had his earlier application blocked.

“I want to protest in front of the Grand Mosque in Stockholm, and I want to express my opinion on the Quran… I will tear up and burn the Quran,” 37-year-old Momika wrote in the application, a copy of which was obtained by news agency AFP.

According to Aftonbladet, Momika said he “doesn’t want my demonstration to be negative about Sweden’s request to join NATO.”

Paludan was not expected to participate in Wednesday’s demonstration.

Swedish politicians have criticized Koran burnings, but have also adamantly defended the right to freedom of expression.

Sweden has said that freedom of expression is firmly enshrined in its constitution and that it meets all the requirements set out in an agreement with Turkey and Finland signed in Madrid a year ago.

In addition to Turkey, several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait, also denounced the Quran burning in January.

Mosque representatives said they were disappointed by the police’s decision to authorize the protest on the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, mosque director and imam Mahmoud Khalfi said on Wednesday.

“The mosque suggested to the police that they should at least divert the demonstration to another location, which is legally possible, but they chose not to,” Khalfi said in a statement.

According to Khalfi, up to 10,000 visitors visit the Stockholm mosque each year for the Eid celebrations.

Swedish and Turkish officials met on June 14 for what the Swedish chief negotiator described as good talks, and will hold another high-level meeting in Brussels hosted by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

This meeting will be held before the Vilnius Summit.

Sweden and Finland have given up decades of military non-alignment after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, seeking greater security by joining NATO.

Finland joined the alliance in April, but the process was slower for Sweden.

Sweden has set its sights on participating in the alliance summit on July 11-12, and although it has strong support from other members, including the United States, both Turkey and Hungary have so far held back ratification.

“Sweden will become a member of NATO,” Kristersson said in an interview with public broadcaster SVT.

“No one can promise that it will happen specifically in Vilnius or just before Vilnius, even though that has always been our ambition. And we also share that ambition with all other NATO countries.’