Ahmad Alloush says it was his intention to denounce those who burn sacred books like the Koran in the Nordic country.
Stockholm, Sweden – A man who was expected to burn the Torah and Bible in front of the Israeli embassy has abandoned the plan and held a demonstration against the desecration of sacred books.
Ahmad Alloush, 32, pulled a lighter from his shopping bag and threw it on the ground in the Swedish capital on Saturday. He said he never intended to burn sacred books.
He then published a Koran and criticized previous incidents of burning copies of the Islamic holy book in Sweden.
“If you want to criticize Islam, that’s fine,” he said. But burning the Koran is “not freedom of expression,” he continued, switching from Swedish to English; it is “an action”.
Swedish courts previously allowed the burnings because they constitutionally protected the right to freedom of assembly, expression and demonstration.
“This is in response to those who burned the Koran – freedom of expression has its limits,” Alloush said.
He could never burn a holy book, he said repeatedly in Arabic and Swedish; he just wanted to demonstrate against the burning of the Koran.
“I made people angry,” he admitted when asked about the reaction to news that someone was planning to burn the Torah and Bible in Stockholm. “You can be happy now,” he quipped.
Alloush said he is originally from Syria but has lived in Sweden for eight years and is based in the southwestern municipality of Borås.
More than a dozen police officers protected Alloush during the demonstration [Nils Adler/Al Jazeera]
Sweden’s constitutional problem
The protest comes two weeks after Salwan Momika, an Iraqi refugee, burned the Koran outside a Stockholm mosque during the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha.
In Sweden there was little public support for the burning of sacred books and no political interest in the events.
Sweden’s global reputation has suffered from the recent cremation as governments in several Muslim countries condemned the decision to allow the cremation.
The Swedish Foreign Ministry condemned the acts as “Islamophobic” and declared: “The burning of the Koran or any other sacred text is an insulting and disrespectful act and a clear provocation.” Expressions of racism, xenophobia and related intolerance have none in Sweden or Europe Place.”
A recent poll commissioned by Swedish TV broadcaster SVT found that a majority of Swedes support a ban on burning religious texts in public.
Sweden could pass an anti-ethnic incitement law, but only to limit what can be said and where burning can take place. A total ban on desecration of scriptures would require reintroducing a law that Sweden had abolished in the 1970s.
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has passed a resolution on religious hatred and bigotry following the fires in Sweden.
The motion was approved on Wednesday but was rejected by the United States and the European Union, which said it ran counter to their positions on human rights and freedom of expression.