...a major Moslem holiday, marked by animal sacrifice and ritual rioting...The police said in its written decision that the security risks associated with the burning "were not of a nature that could justify, under current laws, a decision to reject the request."
The protest unfolds calmly.
Salwan Momika, 37, who fled from Iraq to Sweden several years ago, had asked police for permission to burn the Moslem holy book "to express my opinion about the Koran."
Ahead of the protest, Momika tells news agency TT he also wanted to highlight the importance of freedom of speech.
"This is democracy. It is in danger if they tell us we can’t do this," Momika says.
Under a heavy police presence and with around a dozen opponents shouting at him in Arabic, Momika, dressed in beige trousers and a shirt, addresses the crowd of several dozen through a megaphone.
At various times, he stomps on the Koran, put strips of bacon in it, lit a few pages on fire before slamming it shut, and kicked it like a football, while waving Swedish flags, AFP correspondents at the scene report.
Police had cordoned off an area in a park next to the mosque separating Momika and a co-protester from the crowd.
The protest also garnered heavy criticism on social media, with most users calling it a deliberate act of provocation given that it coincided with the first day of the celebration of Eid al-Adha
...a major Moslem holiday, marked by animal sacrifice and ritual rioting...
"It is unacceptable to allow these actions under the pretext of freedom of expression," he said.
By providing permission for the Koran burning
...One of the basic tenets of Islam is that once a Koran has been printed it is expected to last for all time, no matter how old, ratty, and smelly other, lesser holy books may become. Should it actually become necessary to put a Koran out of its misery there is a ritual that includes extensive charivari, featuring long drawn-wailing and head bonking, ritual wife beating, and the sacrifice of dozens of women's noses and pubic lips. When the actual disposal has been completed there is a prescribed period of celebratory gun sex with the expectation of a minimum of two hundred casualties. Should actual infidels dispose of a Koran, Islamic custom calls for three weeks of rioting and a minimum of three dozen dead, which is a holdover from the days of Moloch worship....
to be carried out, Sweden is expected to face further opposition from
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...in its bid to join NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants...
A series of demonstrations, also involving the burning of the Moslem book or for Kurdish rights, have sparked condemnation from Ankara whose support Sweden needs to join the military alliance.
Sweden and Turkey are set to meet on July 6 in Brussels, with NATO members pushing for Stockholm’s accession before the summit in Lithuania several days later.
Swedish police have recently rejected applications for demonstrations against the Koran but these have been overruled by courts, saying the decision violated freedom of speech.