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QURAN BURNINGS

Swedish court: Police wrong to refuse permission for Quran burning

Swedish police were wrong to reject the burning of the Quran outside the embassies of Turkey and Iraq on two occasions earlier this year, an administrative court has ruled.

a gavel and a book of swedish law
The administrative court in Stockholm overturned the police's decision to reject two Quran burnings. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

The decision not to grant a permit to the planned rallies in February followed a separate burning of the Quran in January, which sparked fury in many Muslim countries and angered Turkey, putting Sweden’s Nato application on hold.

Sweden’s security police said the January demonstration by far-right activist Rasmus Paludan, which did have a permit, had made the Nordic country a higher priority target for terror attacks.

Protests are rarely banned by Swedish police as they are considered a right under freedom of assembly, guaranteed by the constitution, but police cited the risk that further protests could provoke terror attacks or attacks against Swedish interests.

The groups behind the rejected February demonstrations appealed the police’s decision, and on Tuesday a court in Stockholm ruled in their favour and overturned the ban.

The court said that a demonstration permit may only be denied if “relatively concrete circumstances” indicate that there could be security risks or threats to public order at the rally.

“The available possibilities to refuse permission for public assembly are very limited. The administrative court does not consider that the threat presented as the basis of the police authority’s decision to deny the permits is sufficiently concrete and linked to the gathering in question,” said judge Eva-Lotta Hedin in a statement explaining the ruling.

Turkey and Hungary are the last holdouts to ratify Sweden’s Nato membership, after it broke decades of military non-alignment and applied following Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The January Quran burning, carried out by Paludan behind the protection of a police officers and in front of cameras, spurred anti-Swedish protests in several Muslim countries.

Negotiations with Turkey on Nato accession were suspended but restarted in March.

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CRIME

Man shot dead in southern Stockholm in early hours of Monday

A man was shot dead on Monday morning in the Bredäng suburb, just a few hours after another shooting in southern Stockholm.

Man shot dead in southern Stockholm in early hours of Monday

Police were called out to the scene at around 5.30am, after a witness heard gunshots and saw a person on the ground.

The man, aged around 40, was taken to hospital but died from his injuries.

“Police are right now looking for a perpetrator or perpetrators,” police said in a statement, adding that they were investigating. “We will use police search dogs in our work and other investigative measures such as door knocking and interrogations are ongoing.”

Late on Sunday, another man was injured in a shooting in Flemingsberg, south of Stockholm. 

The state of his injuries was not immediately known and no arrests had been reported by the time of publication.

According to unconfirmed reports to the Aftonbladet tabloid, the man, aged around 60, was shot through the door after the shooter knocked on the door and said he had a food delivery.

He was, according to Aftonbladet, not believed to have been the intended victim, but a relative of his was the target of another recent shooting.

Police confirmed the shooting had happened “in connection to an apartment” when asked by the TT news agency.

It was not known on Monday morning whether the two incidents were connected.

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