Swedish PM ‘Extremely Worried’ About Further Quran Burnings

by Aysha Qamar

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he is “extremely worried” about the consequences if more demonstrations burning the Quran continue, as Mulim anger over the desecration of the holy book simmers around the world.

Kristersson told Swedish news agency TT on Thursday, that more requests have been filed with police for permission to hold protests with plans to burn the Quran.

“If they are granted, we are going to face some days where there is a clear risk of something serious happening. I am extremely worried about what it could lead to,” he said, per Reuters.

Leaders of several Muslim countries have spoken out after protestors recently burned the Quran in both Sweden and Denmark. Officials in those countries have stressed that they do not support the burning of religious scripture, but cannot prevent it under rules protecting free speech. 

Kristersson’s fears follow several counter-demonstrations across the globe, including one in which demonstrators stormed and burned the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq on July 20.

Kristersson said that the decision whether not to grant permission for the demonstrations wasn’t his to make.

“It’s the police that makes those decisions, not me,” he told TT on Thursday.

According to The Guardian, Kristersson also joined other officials in claiming that the events were being manipulated “Russia-backed actors” that are trying to harm Sweden’s bid to join NATO.

The minister for civil defense, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, said: “Russia-backed actors are amplifying incorrect statements such as that the Swedish state is behind the desecration of holy scriptures.”

“Sweden has gone from being seen as a tolerant country to being seen as an anti-Islamic land,” Charlotte von Essen, the head of Sweden’s Security Service, told reporters on Thursday.