2023-10-12 11:18:48
It comes after a spate of Quran burnings in the Nordic country sparked debate on whether or not it should be criminalised, and the trial is the first of its kind in Sweden. However, the current case is unrelated to recent Quran burnings and dates back to the autumn of 2020.
The court heard that the man filmed himself burning a copy of the Quran on a barbecue alongside bacon – eating pork is forbidden in Islam. He then filmed himself leaving the burned Quran and the bacon outside a mosque in the city of Linköping, along with signs reading “Muhammed was a paedophile” and “No to Islam”.
A video of the event was later spread on social media, where it was paired with music popular in far-right groups, which was also played by the perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque attack during his attack in 2019, where 51 people were killed and at least 50 more were injured.
Linköping District Court on Thursday found that the context was enough to classify it as agitation against an ethnic group, as the charge is called in Sweden, because it was clear that the video meant to target Muslims, and not Islam as a religion.
“The court’s assessment is that the chosen music to a video with [this] content, can’t be perceived in any other way than as a threat against Muslims alluding to their faith. The other parts of the video can in context not be perceived in any other way than as an expression of disrespect,” said the court in a statement.
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