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Sweden condemned as police greenlight Torah burning protest

Swedish police on Friday said they had granted a permit for a protest which would include burning holy texts outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, sparking condemnation from Israel and Jewish organisations.

Isaac Herzog
Israeli President Isaac Herzog speaks during a meeting with US President Joe Biden, not pictured, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on October 26th, 2022. Photo by: SAUL LOEB / AFP

The controversial protest, scheduled for Saturday, comes weeks after a man set fire to pages of the Quran outside Stockholm’s main mosque – leading to widespread outrage and condemnations around the world.

The demonstration would include a burning of the Torah and the Bible, was in response to the Quran burning protest and would be an expression in support of freedom of speech, according to the application to police.

In a comment to AFP, Stockholm police stressed that in line with Swedish legislation they granted permits for people to hold public gatherings and not for the activities conducted during them.

“The police does not issue permits to burn various religious texts – the police issues permits to hold a public gathering and express an opinion,” said Carina Skagerlind, press officer for Stockholm police.

“An important distinction,” she added.

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog was one of several Israeli representatives and Jewish organisations to immediately condemn the decision.

“I unequivocally condemn the permission granted in Sweden to burn holy books,” Herzog said in a statement.

“I condemned the burning of the Quran, sacred to Muslims world over, and I am now heartbroken that the same fate awaits a Jewish Bible, the eternal book of the Jewish people,” the head of state added.

Yaakov Hagoel, chairman of the World Zionist Organization, said in a statement that granting the permit was “not freedom of expression but Antisemitism”.

In June, Swedish police had granted a permit for 37-year-old Salwan Momika’s protest where he stomped on the Quran and set several pages alight.

The permit was granted in line with free speech protections, but authorities later said they had opened an investigation over “agitation against an ethnic group”, noting that Momika had burnt pages from the Islamic holy book very close to the mosque.

Countries including Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco summoned Swedish ambassadors in protest at the Quran burning incident, which led to an emergency meeting of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

Sweden’s government also condemned the burning as “Islamophobic”, while noting that the country had a “constitutionally protected right to freedom of assembly, expression and demonstration”.

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POLITICS

TikTok shuts down Sweden Democrats’ anonymous accounts

TikTok has closed down the Sweden Democrats’ anonymous accounts after a Swedish documentary revealed that the far-right party operated a secret social media troll farm.

TikTok shuts down Sweden Democrats' anonymous accounts

The documentary, by broadcaster TV4’s Kalla Fakta programme, identified 23 anonymous social media accounts controlled by the Sweden Democrats’ communications team.

Those included 13 accounts on Chinese-owned video hosting app TikTok, which have all been shut down, the platform confirmed to Swedish news agency TT on Monday.

TikTok declined to comment on why they had removed the accounts.

Sweden Democrat press officer Oskar Cavalli-Björkman said the party was trying to contact TikTok to find out why the accounts had been closed, but declined to comment further.

In the Kalla Fakta documentary, a reporter went undercover within the Sweden Democrats’ communications department. They revealed a number of things, including attempts at smear campaigns on politicians from other parties.

It also revealed a total of 23 different anonymous accounts spread across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, which are all run by the Sweden Democrats and also spread for example radical anti-immigration views.

These accounts have a combined 260,000 followers and published roughly 1,000 posts in the first three months of the year, which were viewed over 27 million times.

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