Burning the Koran endangers NATO membership Magazine 21

After this obscure act, a secondary legal authority came to the conclusion that the whole thing should have been prevented because the desecration of the Qur’an was an expression of anger against a religious community. But then the hater of the Iraqi Koran announced that he would soon carry out another act of a similar nature in front of the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm – and again the officials let themselves be fooled: should this be allowed because in Sweden freedom of opinion is paramount? You will see it in about a week.

Obsessive theme in Scandinavia

In the Nordic countries obsession with the Koran. Danish courts ruled in 2017 that burning the Quran is legal. In Norway, a splinter group led by Lars Thorsen focuses on occasionally setting fire to copies of Islamic scriptures. And in Sweden, it is not the Swede who organizes the public destruction of the Koran, but a Dane named Rasmus Paludan. In April, he, along with several like-minded people, got into street fights with the police in several Swedish cities over the occurrence of a malicious Quran.

There was something similar a year ago, what about the Turkish president Erdogan The reason was to block Sweden’s application for NATO membership (there was and is valid Erdogan There are other reasons, but the Stockholm government’s position on Islam is critical.) By the way, Paludan once wanted to do an act of this kind in Great Britain, in Wakefield – the British authorities banned it. It would never occur to anyone in the UK to question their democracy and the guarantee of freedom of expression because of this.

In the United States of America in 2010, an evangelical preacher threatened to burn the Quran, but because prior notification of the horrific incident sparked protests not only in the United States itself but also internationally, it ultimately did not happen.

The basic right to freedom of expression hate crimes

Different, as mentioned, several times now in Sweden. Government and judiciary in limbo: Sweden was the first country in the world to guarantee freedom of the press in 1766. The constitution in 1991 declared it a “fundamental right to freedom of expression” – but it was limited in the sense that insulting a belief should not equate to freedom of speech but rather a crime hatred.

The two decrees inevitably lead to a difficult gray area. After the international scandal over the recent desecration of the Qur’an, lawyers and politicians are debating whether the strange act should not be banned because it was performed in front of a mosque and on a Muslim holiday of all places – and whether it is true? It should be stored differently in time and space, taking into account the basic right to freedom of expression, which should have been allowed. The question is likely to pop up again in a few days when the hater of the Koran, Sloane Momica, wants to repeat what he did in front of the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm. what he announced.

Erdogan Joker at the next NATO summit

Governments in the Middle East are not interested in the intricacies of Swedish domestic politics. Some (at least temporarily) withdrew their ambassadors from Stockholm, others protested, while others allowed large-scale demonstrations in front of the Swedish diplomatic missions in their capitals—things are particularly difficult in Baghdad at the moment.

However, the most important indirect recipient of Quranic provocation in Stockholm is the Turkish president Erdogan, at first outwardly somewhat reticent – declared that the measure was certainly not appropriate to positively motivate Turkey to vote yes to Sweden’s membership in NATO. Which means, in clear language, that Turkey will block Sweden’s request to join the upcoming NATO summit.