Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

RELIGION

Swedish police appeal court ruling allowing Koran burning protests

Swedish police said Thursday they had appealed a court ruling which overturned a police decision to block two gatherings where protesters had planned to burn the Koran.

Published: 7 April 2023 08:21 CEST
Stockholm
Swedish politicians have criticised the Koran burning, but have also adamantly defended the right to freedom of expression. Photo by Hongbin on Unsplash

“The Police Authority believes that the principles of the issue are important and it is therefore urgent that it is examined by a higher court,” police said in a statement.

The burning of Islam’s holy book outside Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm in January sparked anger in the Muslim world, leading to weeks of protests, calls for a boycott of Swedish goods, and holding up Sweden’s NATO membership bid.

Stockholm police then refused to grant permission for two subsequent similar protests planned for February, citing security concerns.

But in a ruling on Tuesday the Stockholm Administrative Court overturned the decision, saying the cited security risk concerns were not enough to limit the right to demonstrate.

The “police authority did not have sufficient support for its decisions,” judge Eva-Lotta Hedin said.

On Thursday, the police authority said that the appeals had been filed and that it requested to have until April 25 to “elaborate the authority’s case.”

Swedish police had authorised the January protest organised by Rasmus Paludan, a Swedish-Danish activist who has already been convicted for racist abuse.

Riots in Sweden

Paludan also provoked rioting in Sweden last year when he went on a tour of the country and publicly burned copies of Islam’s holy book.

The January Koran burning also damaged Sweden’s relations with Turkey, which took particular offence that police had authorised the demonstration.

Ankara has blocked Sweden’s NATO bid because of what it perceives as Stockholm’s failure to crack down on Kurdish groups it views as “terrorists.”

“It is clear that those who caused such a disgrace in front of our country’s embassy can no longer expect any benevolence from us regarding their application for NATO membership,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in January.

Police then refused to authorise two other requests, one by a private individual and one by an organisation, to hold Koran burnings outside the Turkish and Iraqi embassies in Stockholm in February.

Police argued that the January protest had made Sweden “a higher priority target for attacks”.

Swedish politicians have criticised the Koran burning, but have also adamantly defended the right to freedom of expression.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

POLITICS

‘Very little debate’ on consequences of Sweden’s crime and migration clampdown

Sweden’s political leaders are putting the population’s well-being at risk by moving the country in a more authoritarian direction, according to a recent report.

Published: 29 April 2024 08:56 CEST
'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast. 

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

SHOW COMMENTS