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Swedish school reported over ‘holy’ yoga lessons

The "om" chant featured in yoga lessons at a Stockholm school has prompted a complaint calling for the lessons to be banned because of the term's ties to the Hindu religion.

Swedish school reported over 'holy' yoga lessons

“Schools should be free from religious compenents, according the the education act,” reads the complaint filed with the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (Skolinspektionen).

“The law has led the Schools Inspectorate to criticize graduation ceremonies in church, but not when one practices yoga in school.”

The complaint cites recent Swedish media reports featuring teachers and students who praised the yoga lessons offered at the Östermalm school in Stockholm and explained how the word “om” creates “physical vibrations in the body”.

During the spring, the school has experimented with the new subject from kindergarten through to grade six.

Once a week, an instructor teaches the students yoga, the ancient meditative discipline which originated in India.

However, the complaint claims that the syllable “om” is the most sacred syllable in the whole of the Hindu religion, and even in Buddhism, and represents the holy trinity of the Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

The complaint also references Hindu literature, which explains that “om” has deeply religious connotations related to thought, knowledge and insight.

As a result, argues the complainant, yoga shouldn’t be allowed to be taught in Swedish schools.

“I ask therefore that the Schools Inspectorate examine whether yoga at Östermalm school of Stockholm, and at other schools in the country where yoga is practiced, is a religious component and should be forbidden,” reads the complaint.

The letter also demanded more information about whether the students have a choice in participating, and whether parents are being informed of this “religious component”.

Following the complaint, the agency has sent a request to education officials with the city of Stockholm asking them to look into the matter

Education officials have been given until the May 29th to submit their response to the complaint.

Oliver Gee

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RELIGION

Al-Azhar university calls for Sweden boycott over Koran burning

The Sunni Muslim world's most prestigious educational institution, Al-Azhar in Egypt, has called for the boycott of Swedish and Dutch products after far-right activists destroyed Korans in those countries.

Al-Azhar university calls for Sweden boycott over Koran burning

Al-Azhar, in a statement issued on Wednesday, called on “Muslims to boycott Dutch and Swedish products”.

It also urged “an appropriate response from the governments of these two countries” which it charged were “protecting despicable and barbaric crimes in the name of ‘freedom of expression'”.

Swedish-Danish far-right politician Rasmus Paludan on Saturday set fire to a copy of the Muslim holy book in front of Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm, raising tensions as Sweden courts Ankara over its bid to join Nato.

EXPLAINED:

The following day, Edwin Wagensveld, who heads the Dutch chapter of the German anti-Islam group Pegida, tore pages out of the Koran during a one-man protest outside parliament.

Images on social media also showed him walking on the torn pages of the holy book.

The desecration of the Koran sparked strong protests from Ankara and furious demonstrations in several capitals of the Muslim world including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry “strongly condemned” the Koran burning, expressing “deep concern at the recurrence of such events and the recent Islamophobic escalation in a certain number of European countries”.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson condemned Paludan’s actions as “deeply disrespectful”, while the United States called it “repugnant”.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday said the burning was the work of “a provocateur” who “may have deliberately sought to put distance between two close partners of ours – Turkey and Sweden”.

On Tuesday, Turkey postponed Nato accession talks with Sweden and Finland, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Stockholm for allowing weekend protests that included the burning of the Koran.

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