Sweden: A gathering at which the Bible and Torah are burned is authorized

Israel condemned a permit that does not fall under “freedom of expression but under anti-Semitism”. This meeting must take place this Saturday between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.

Swedish police on Friday (July 14) authorized a rally by three people to burn a copy of the Bible and a Torah outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, a decision immediately condemned by Israel.

According to the request made to the police, the organizers want to burn these religious texts in response to the Koran burning that took place outside the Stockholm mosque in June and provoked the anger of the Muslim world. The meeting must take place on Saturday, July 15, between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.

condemnation of Israel

Police contacted by AFP insist that the permit was not given for an official request to burn religious texts, but stressed that they did authorize a public meeting at which “an opinion” would be expressed. , within the framework of the constitutional right to freedom of assembly. “The distinction is important,” added Stockholm Police spokeswoman Carina Skagerlind.

Nevertheless, the rally was sharply condemned by Israel and Jewish organizations. “I condemned the burning of the Koran, sacred to Muslims around the world, and today it breaks my heart that the Jewish Bible, the eternal book of the Jewish people, awaits the same fate,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog replied. For his part, Yaakov Hagoel, President of the World Zionist Organization, opined that the granting of such permission by the police was not “free speech, but anti-Semitism”.

On June 28, an Iraqi refugee in Sweden burned some pages of a copy of the Koran in front of the largest mosque in Stockholm on Eid al-Adha Day, a holiday celebrated by Muslims around the world. The event prompted a range of reactions in the Muslim world, and the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution on Wednesday condemning the burning of the Koran and other acts of religious hatred. But several countries, especially Western ones, expressed their opposition to anti-blasphemy laws during the debates and strongly condemned such acts.