After allowing Quran desecration on Eid, Sweden opens hate crime probe

An investigation over hate speech has been launched in Sweden against the Iraqi-origin attacker who burned a copy of the Quran in front of a mosque in the Sodermalm district of Stockholm as Muslims across the world celebrated Eid al Adha.

The probe comes after the Nordic country granted permission to a man to tear up and burn a copy of Quran outside Stockholm's central mosque on Wednesday, an event that risks angering Türkiye as Stockholm bids to join NATO.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan immediately condemned the act in a tweet, adding that it was unacceptable to allow anti-Islam protests in the name of freedom of expression.

"Turning a blind eye to such atrocious acts is to be complicit," Fidan said.

Burning of religious texts is "disrespectful and hurtful", the deputy spokesperson for the US State Department told reporters in a daily briefing.

"What might be legal is certainly not necessarily appropriate," Vedant Patel said.

Some 200 onlookers witnessed one of the two extremists tearing up pages of a copy of the Quran and wiping his shoes with it before putting bacon in it and setting the book on fire, while the other spoke into a megaphone.

Some of those present shouted "Allah is Great" in Arabic to protest against the burning, and one man was detained by police after he attempted to throw a rock.

In its written decision granting a permit for the desecration, Stockholm police said the security risks associated with the burning "were not of a nature that could justify, under current laws, a decision to reject the request".

Turkish efforts against Quran desecration

Representatives of the mosque were disappointed by the police decision to grant permission for the desecration on the Muslim holiday of Eid al Adha, mosque director and Imam Mahmoud Khalfi said.

"The mosque suggested to the police to at least divert the demonstration to another location, which is possible by law, but they chose not to do so," Khalfi said in a statement.

Up to 10,000 visitors attend Stockholm's mosque for Eid celebrations every year, according to Khalfi.

As in previous similar incidents, the Turkish embassy in Stockholm took the necessary steps, demanding the Swedish authorities prevent the attack.

In this context, the embassy contacted Organisation of Islamic Cooperation [OIC] members, embassies of Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Morocco, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Palestine in Stockholm.

The Turkish embassy also expressed its outrage to Ambassador Jan Knutsson, state secretary of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Police chief Anders Thornberg, parliament speaker Andreas Norlen and to the Prime Minister's Chief Foreign and Security Adviser, Henrik Landerholm.

Previous bids regarding the burning of the Quran in front of the Stockholm embassies of Türkiye and Iraq were halted by the Swedish police, but this decision was annulled by the court.

'Diseased mentality'

The head of Türkiye's Directorate of Religious Affairs, Ali Erbas, condemned Sweden for the approval.

"I strongly condemn the approval of the despicable act against our holy book, the Quran, in Sweden during Eid al Adha," Erbas wrote in a statement on social media.

"I invite Sweden and Western countries to stop protecting this diseased mentality that is hostile to Muslims, social peace and humanity."

"We expect concrete sanctions against the perpetrators of the incidents to be implemented," he added.

In addition to Quran-burning acts, Ankara accuses Stockholm of harbouring members of the PKK terror group.