In Sweden, three new applications to burn religious books have been submitted to the police, sparking further controversy regarding the country’s freedom of speech laws and its impact on religious groups.
These applications come in the wake of a recent incident where the burning of a Koran led to widespread outrage across the Muslim world, even prompting a UN meeting.
One of the applications seeks permission to burn the Islamic holy text outside a mosque in Stockholm, filed by a woman in her 50s who aims to conduct the protest at the earliest opportunity.
Another application requests to burn the Torah and the Bible outside Stockholm’s Israeli embassy on July 15 in response to the recent Koran burning, citing it as a symbolic gesture in support of freedom of expression.
The third application, made by an individual described as a ‘private person,’ aims to burn ‘religious texts’ on July 12 in Helsingborg.
These developments follow the UN’s expression of concern over the Koran burning incident in Sweden, which triggered a diplomatic backlash and led to the storming of the Swedish embassy in Baghdad by angry Iraqi protesters.
The UN’s Human Rights Council will hold an urgent session to address the matter, as the incident has also raised concerns in Muslim-majority nations such as Turkey, affecting Sweden’s bid to join the NATO military alliance.
Furthermore, Pakistan and other nations have called for a discussion on the increasing public acts of religious hatred, particularly the desecration of the Holy Koran in European and other countries.
Regarding the protests, the 50-year-old woman who applied to burn a Koran outside a Stockholm mosque expressed that the global reaction is unjust to Sweden, as reported by Swedish news broadcaster SVT Nyheter on Wednesday.