Afrasianet - The incident of burning a copy of the Holy Quran in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, sparked anger among Muslims, and sparked criticism and condemnation from Arab and Islamic countries, which considered it "a provocative act to the feelings of a billion and a half Muslims."
The justification behind giving the green light to such behavior in a European country inhabited by more than 600,000 Muslims is the right to freedom of expression, while Islamic countries refuse to include it in the so-called freedom of expression and say that it is an act that clearly amounts to a hate crime.
The incident of burning a copy of the Qur'an recently was not the first, and Sweden is not the first country in which this reckless act takes place.
The following is a chronology of the most prominent incidents of desecration of the Qur’an, from the most recent to the oldest.
Through monitoring, it is clear that most of the incidents of desecration of the Holy Qur’an were issued by the Danish far-right Rasmus Paludan or his supporters.
January 21, 2023 The leader of the far-right Danish "hard line" party, Rasmus Paludan, burned a copy of the Qur'an near the Turkish embassy in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, amid police protection, which prevented anyone from approaching him while he was committing the crime.
July 3, 2022 Lars Thorne - leader of the "Stop Islamization of Norway" movement - burned a copy of the Noble Qur'an, in a neighborhood where a large Muslim community lives on the outskirts of the capital, Oslo.
The scene angered a number of Muslims, who rushed to extinguish the burning fire, and soon a crowd gathered to protest against the activists.
May 1, 2022 Paludan burned the Holy Qur’an in front of a mosque in Sweden, despite the police’s refusal to grant him permission to do so, while a group of 10 people tried to prevent Paludan from burning the Qur’an, which prompted him to flee in his car.
April 14, 2022 Rasmus Paludan himself burned a copy of the Holy Quran in Linköping, southern Sweden, under police protection. Clashes between protesters and policemen following the burning of the Holy Quran resulted in the injury of 26 policemen and 14 demonstrators, and 20 police cars were destroyed.
August 30, 2020 A Norwegian extremist anti-Islam group belonging to the Stop Islamization of Norway (SIAN) movement tore pages from the Holy Quran and spat on them during an anti-Islam demonstration in the capital, Oslo.
August 28, 2020 3 activists in the Danish Paludan "Hard Line" party burned a copy of the Qur'an in the Swedish city of "Malmö", as a result of which violent confrontations broke out between the Swedish police and demonstrators.
The Swedish authorities also banned the party's leader, Rasmus Paludan, from entering its territory for two years.
November 17, 2019 The "Stop the Islamization of Norway" (SIAN) movement organized a demonstration, during which it threw two copies of the Qur'an into a rubbish bin, then Lars Torsen, the leader of the organization, burned another copy, which prompted many of the protesters present at the time in the square to attack him. Media said that a Syrian refugee appeared crossing the fence surrounding the demonstrators and kicking Lars Torsen while setting fire to the Koran, before the two people were stopped by the police.
June 8, 2019 The German authorities found about 50 torn Qurans inside the "Rahma" mosque in downtown Bremen, after which the Central Council of Muslims in Germany strongly condemned the incident and said that the act aims to cause "a spiral of hatred and violence against Muslims and their mosques."
March 22, 2019 In Al-Wadan, I burned copies of the Holy Qur’an, under the pretext of protesting the performance of Friday prayers, in front of the Danish Parliament building.
Muslims in Denmark performed Friday prayers, in front of the parliament building, to express their condemnation of the massacre of the two mosques in New Zealand.
December 25, 2015 A group of demonstrators attacked a Muslim prayer hall in a popular neighborhood in Ajaccio, on the island of Corsica, in southern France, vandalizing it, burning Qurans and writing anti-Arab phrases, the day after firefighters and a policeman were injured in an attack by masked men in the city.
December 2015 A 42-year-old Danish man burned a copy of the Holy Qur’an in his backyard and posted a video of his act.
About two years later, the Danish authorities charged him with blasphemy (blasphemy) for burning a copy of the Qur’an, which is punishable by law with a maximum of 4 months in prison. But the public prosecutor said that if he is convicted of the charge against him, he will only be fined.
December 27, 2014 British police arrested a young man who tore up an English-translated copy of the Holy Quran and put it in the toilet and then burned it, before the authorities released him on bail, according to Business Insider.
April 28, 2012 American pastor Terry Jones burned a copy of the Koran and broadcast the scene on the Internet in protest against the arrest of Christian cleric Youssef Naderkhani in Iran.
March 22, 2011 American pastor Terry Jones supervised the burning of a copy of the Qur’an in a small church in Florida, after holding the Holy Qur’an responsible for a large number of crimes.
The US President condemned the action, which sparked violent reactions at the time, including an attack on a United Nations headquarters in Afghanistan that left a number of people dead.
April 18, 2011 A British court has sentenced a former soldier to 70 days in prison for setting fire to the Noble Qur’an in Carlisle, England. The soldier, named Andrew Ryan, admitted religiously motivated harassment and the theft of a Koran from a library.
April 10, 2011 Police arrested Sayn Owens, the candidate for the far-right British National Party, after he burned a copy of the Koran in his garden.
In a video, Owens appeared pouring kerosene on the Koran and setting it on fire in his garden.
2005 Several Islamic countries, Britain and India witnessed large demonstrations and protests over reports that the Holy Qur’an was desecrated by US interrogators in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The demonstrations came at a time when the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva said that detainees at the US Guantanamo base had confirmed to it that there had been several desecrations of the Holy Quran. In the Arab world, the recent incident of burning the Qur’an was condemned by 14 countries: the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Emirates, Kuwait, the Sultanate of Oman and Bahrain), Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Morocco, Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria and Libya, in separate official statements.
Internationally, strong condemnations were issued by Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran for that incident, in separate official statements.
The European Commission said that the Swedish authorities must take steps regarding the incident, stressing that "racism, xenophobia, and ethnic and religious hatred have no place in the European Union," an acknowledgment that the incident is a racist and xenophobic act for which the law must be held accountable.
So what happened ?
Swedish Public Prosecutor Decides Not to Open Investigation into Qur'an Burning Stockholm Global Pictures In Sweden, the public prosecutor decided that since Qur'an burning is part of freedom of expression, there is no need for an investigation into the act of Qur'an burning outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on January 21.
Rasmus Paludan, leader of the Danish far-right Hard Line party, burned the Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on January 21.
According to the Stockholm-based daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, someone from the city of Västerås filed a complaint with the police after Paludan's outrageous act. Prosecutor Fredrik Engblad, who specializes in hate crimes, decided a few weeks after filing the motion that there was no need to open an investigation into the act.
The decision, dated March 12, stated that the act in question did not constitute incitement against a group or against any other crime. Prosecutor Engblad indicated that burning the Qur'an should be considered freedom of expression, adding that freedom of expression is the basis of the European Convention and Swedish law.
urning the Holy Quran: What does international law say? Claiming the legality of "burning the Qur'an" raises a fundamental problem, the essence of which is the distinction between three basic concepts separated by very thin boundaries: freedom of expression, hate speech, and incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence.
Clashes between police and angry demonstrators.
In the context of the verbal clash between Sweden and Turkey, the extreme rightists restored the slogans of Islamophobia, and called for burning the Qur’an every Friday, until Turkey acquiesced and signed the requests of Sweden and Finland to join NATO.
A number of officials in the West point out that "burning the Qur'an" is a "legal" act that is permitted under the freedom of expression established by European laws and guaranteed by international law and relevant international treaties.
However, claiming the legality of this act raises a fundamental problem, the essence of which is distinguishing between three basic concepts separated by very thin boundaries: freedom of expression, hate speech, and incitement to discrimination,
hostility, and violence.
1- Freedom of opinion and expression
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the constitutions and laws of a number of countries, all guarantee freedom of opinion and expression, and state: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
This right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference, seeking, receiving and imparting information and ideas through any media, regardless of borders. Article 19 of the International Covenant, paragraph (3), places restrictions on that freedom, as it states:
- The exercise of the rights stipulated in Paragraph 2 of this Article entails special duties and responsibilities.
Accordingly, it may be subject to some restrictions, but provided that they are specified by the text of the law, and that they are necessary:
(a) To respect the rights or reputations of others.
(b) to protect national security, public order, public health, or public morals.
2- Hate speech
The United Nations has defined hate speech as “any form of communication, in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses derogatory or discriminatory language with reference to a person or group on the basis of who they are, in other words, on the basis of their religion, race, nationality, ethnicity, color or their lineage, gender, or any other identity factor.”
Despite this definition provided by the United Nations, no agreement has been reached - so far - on a global definition of hate speech under international human rights law.
Discussions are still going on about this definition in the human rights and constitutional frameworks, especially because this concept is linked to freedom of opinion and expression and the fear of human rights activists that this concept will turn into a means to suppress freedom of opinion and expression guaranteed in human rights declarations and charters, and that states will use it to suppress dissent and get rid of opponents..
For this reason, the United Nations has made an attempt to develop certain characteristics through which it is possible to distinguish between freedom of opinion and hate speech, namely:
1. Hate speech is “discriminatory” (prejudicial, intolerant, or intolerant) or “pejorative” (prejudicial, derogatory, or demeaning) to an individual or group.
2- Hate speech is speech that incites hatred of individuals or a group because of their identity, including: “religion, race, nationality, color, lineage, and gender,” as well as characteristics such as language, economic or social origin, disability, health status, or sexual orientation, and many other things.
3- Inflammatory speech can be conveyed through any form of expression, including images, animations, gestures, symbols, etc... 4- Hate speech can only be directed at individuals or groups of individuals in their “collective” capacity.
It does not include criticism directed at states and their policies, symbols or public officials, not even criticism directed at religious leaders or criticism of the principles of faith.
3- Hate speech that includes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence
This is prohibited under international human rights law. Article 20(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: “The law shall prohibit any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”
The main and essential difference between this prohibited principle and what preceded it, is the act of "incitement". Simply "expressing" or "advocating" speech directed against a group that does not include incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence is in the gray area of international human rights law and is difficult to criminalize.
As for when the speech includes clear or implied incitement (criminal intent) or if it “causes to fuel violence”, international law prohibits it and calls on countries to take measures to prevent it, and courts have usually criminalized it (see the case of Ross v. Canada, where a teacher was expelled because of his hostile statements Anti-Semitic, and the court found that his writings and publications “created a poisoned environment,” so they are not considered a violation of freedom of opinion and expression and are considered an incitement to discrimination and hostility).
As a result, burning the Qur’an is an act that includes incitement to discrimination, hostility, hatred, and of course violence, as evidenced by the fact that it has caused many times mutual violence and created an environment hostile to Muslims in their collective capacity as Muslims, and includes clear religious racism, and therefore it is an act prohibited in international law, and freedom of opinion cannot be claimed And the expression to legalize it and consider it a legitimate act.