Sweden Indicts Agitator for Hate Speech After He Burned Koran
(Bloomberg) -- Swedish prosecutors have pressed charges against a far-right extremist who last year started a series of Koran burnings that stoked anger in the Muslim world and complicated the Nordic country’s accession to NATO.
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The indictment, filed at the Malmo District Court on Wednesday, alleges that Rasmus Paludan agitated against a religious group by setting a copy of the Koran on fire, kicking it and spitting on it during a protest in April 2022. The charges also said he made statements to the effect that Muslims like to communicate by using violence and that they threaten countries that allow them as immigrants.
Paludan, who has dual Swedish and Danish citizenship, last year burned a translated copy of the Koran near Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm, angering the Turkish government who held the keys to Sweden’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. That incident was followed by similar events staged by others, further fueling anger from Turkey and other Muslim countries.
Sweden’s embassy in Iraq was stormed in July of the same year and the Nordic country raised its terror threat status a month later. The level currently remains at four on a five-point scale, but attention on Paludan’s provocations has subsided and Turkey finally rubber-stamped Sweden’s NATO accession, allowing it to become the alliance’s 32nd member in March.
While Swedish law doesn’t prohibit burning books considered holy, it is illegal to threaten, insult or encourage violence against ethnic, religious and other groups.
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