The request has come from a 31-year-old man, who intends to set fire the holy book of Islam, at the same time as setting fire to a picture of Iran’s head of state,  Ali Khamenei, and also two doll’s heads, with the event intended to protest the way Iran treats its people. 

“I cannot accept that our people live in such a state of ignorance and superstition,” the man told Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT.

Khamenei has demanded that Sweden extradite the people who carried out earlier burnings of the Quran and has also accused Sweden’s government of launching a war on the entire Muslim world by allowing the burnings to continue. 

“The Swedish government should know that through its support for the criminals who are burning the hold Quran, it has readied itself for a war with the Muslim world,” Khamenei said in a statement issued on Twitter. 

Sweden’s national police said that as the application had only just come in, it could not yet comment on whether permission to hold the protest would be granted or not. 

An appeals court confirmed at the end of June that police had been wrong to reject a series of applications to burn the Quran in February, making it difficult for police to justify rejecting similar requests this month.