Two men burn a Koran in front of Parliament, Muslim states “disappointed”

2023-07-31 19:58:28

This is called throwing oil on the fire. Two men set fire to a copy of the Koran on Monday in front of Parliament in Stockholm, during a rally similar to previous events that caused a diplomatic crisis between Sweden and the Muslim world. Smirking, Salwan Momika, a 37-year-old Iraqi refugee, and Salwan Najem trampled on a copy of the Koran before setting it on fire, as they had done at the end of June in front of the largest mosque in the Swedish capital.

The rally passed off peacefully, with a handful of counter-protesters chanting “Allahu-Akbar! “. The two men had organized another rally on July 20, in front of the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm, during which they had desecrated the holy book of Islam without burning it. They have stated several times that they want the Koran outright banned. In their request sent to the police, the two men said they wanted to “demonstrate in front of Parliament and ask for the banning of the Koran”.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation “disappointed”

Visiting her family in Sweden, the Dutch tourist Tamazight El Yaakoubi is surprised with AFP: “Honestly, (he does) all this to attract attention, it’s quite obvious”. “Before coming here we were quite scared, we said to ourselves, a burnt Koran, but why? said the 18-year-old law student, who calls herself Muslim. “But when we got here, we saw that almost everyone is full of love and respect.”

These desecrations, which have multiplied in recent months in Sweden, have caused tensions in the Muslim world. The Swedish police, who grant the assembly permits, always insist that these are given in the name of freedom of assembly, stressing that this did not amount to condoning what would happen there. An argument that does not seem to convince: the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which met this Monday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, expressed its disappointment at the lack of measures to prevent these burnings.

We are disappointed to see that no action has been taken at the official level to prevent the recurrence of these acts of provocation,” OIC Secretary General Hissein Brahim Taha said during the opening session. “I would like to stress that we have all the respect for the Swedish and Danish peoples and we know that the acts committed on their territories are the work of a minority of extremists”, said the Chadian diplomat.