Muslims help shut down protest, burning of Torah scroll in Sweden

The Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday that it was able to cancel a planned demonstration in Sweden in front of the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, which was supposed to include the burning of a Torah scroll. Yet in a conversation with The Jerusalem Post, a Swedish-Israeli rabbi shared that it was actually leadership from the local Swedish Muslim community that assisted in persuading the organizer to cancel the provocative act. 

According to Swedish media, an Egyptian writer who lives in Sweden recently submitted a request for this demonstration to the local police. 

After the publication of the planned demonstration on Israeli radio, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement: "We acted immediately and decisively in order to prevent the shocking and humiliating event from taking place." 

What happened in Stockholm?

According to reports, the Stockholm Police actually was intending on allowing the protest to take place since it is considered freedom of expression. In addition, a week before, a similar demonstration took place, in front of the Turkish embassy, which included burning a Quran book.

“The burning of the Torah scroll was prevented thanks to the leadership of the Muslim community in Sweden,” Rabbi Moshe David HaCohen told the Post. HaCohen is the co-founder and project director of Amanah, a Swedish organization that promotes dialogue and connections between religious minorities, mainly Muslims and Jews. Amanah is based on the personal relationship and dialogue that was established between Imam Salahuddin Barakat HaCohen. HaCohen was formerly the rabbi of the Malmo Jewish community in the Southern part of Sweden and now lives in Israel, but visits Sweden regularly. 

HaCohen explained that “when we reached a situation where Sweden insisted on the right to freedom of expression [before the planned demonstration of the Torah scroll], those who worked behind the scenes and approached the Egyptian writer were people from the Muslim community in Stockholm and also the Muslim leadership, associated with the Amanah organization. We at Amanah have been working for cooperation on mutual religious and minority issues in Sweden for five years.”

He added that following the burning of Quran books outside of the Turkish embassy in Sweden, “the Jewish communities, in cooperation with Amanah, issued a statement on behalf of all the Jewish communities in support of the Muslim community. We issued a statement strongly condemning the burning of the Quran and demanded changing the law, by limiting the laws of freedom of speech.”

In the joint statement, the Swedish Jewish communities and Amanah said that “it is with deep concern that we once again witness islamophobic hate manifestations in the streets of Sweden. Once again racists and extremists are allowed to abuse democracy and Freedom of Speech in order to normalize hate against one of the religious minorities in Sweden, by burning the Quran.”

“Our tragic European history has taught us that book burnings often signal the onset of the normalization of hatred towards a group in society,” the statement said. “Historically against Jews and currently against Muslims. Not recognizing these manifestations of hate as an expression of threats and incitement against ethnic groups constitutes neglect of history,” the statement of Jewish leaders said.

They concluded by saying that they wish to express their “support to the Swedish Muslim Community and clearly state that every action and sign of prejudice and hatred is unacceptable.”

According to Swedish DN news, an Egyptian writer is a 34-year-old man whose name wasn’t published. He told DN that he was advised against carrying out his plans by representatives from the Islamic League in Stockholm's mosque, and was quoted saying that “they [the Islamic League] say it is against Islam and I wouldn’t be representing Muslims when burning a copy of the Torah outside the Israeli embassy.” He added that “it's okay – I would be representing myself.”

According to Swedish media, the 34-year-old Egyptian writer submitted an application for a police permit to hold his demonstrations on Saturday, January 28 at 1 p.m. Yet he told DN on Thursday afternoon that he has decided to postpone his planned actions “for a couple of weeks.” According to the report, he was also approached by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who asked him to “tone it down.” According to Rabbi HaCohen, a further meeting with the author and Muslim leadership took place, through the mediation of Amanah, in which he decided to cancel the request entirely.

The 34-year-old explained to DN that he is “tired of his tax money going towards protecting right-wing extremist Rasmus Paludan's repeated Quran burnings,” most recently outside the Turkish embassy. His actions are intended to claim that Swedish law is hypocritical.