Quran Burnings Push Scandinavian Nations to Reconsider Free Speech Laws

Islamic nations have called on Denmark and Sweden to ban the desecration of the Quran, criticizing recent burnings of the holy book “under the garb of freedom of expression” amid a widening rift between Scandinavian countries and the Muslim world. 

“It is unfortunate that the concerned authorities claiming freedom of expression continue to provide licenses to repeat these acts contrary to international law, and this leads to a lack of respect for religions,” Hissein Brahim Taha, Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the 57-member grouping of the world’s biggest Islamic nations, said after foreign ministers from Muslim nations met virtually this week to discuss the issue. 

Yet even as the OIC met, two protesters burned pages torn from a Quran outside the Swedish parliament in Stockholm, in the third such demonstration in recent weeks. And in neighboring Denmark, far right-protesters burned a Quran last week in the capital Copenhagen.

Sweden’s Prime Minister has warned of retaliatory attacks if the burnings continue. 

“There is a clear risk of something serious happening,” Ulf Kristersson said last week. “I am extremely worried about what it could lead to.” 

Beyond the risks of reprisals, the burnings—allowed under Swedish and Danish free-speech laws—could also worsen geopolitical tensions. Sweden’s bid to join the NATO alliance in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine finally moved forward last month after Turkey, a NATO member, withdrew its veto following months of delays that Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan attributed in part to the desecrations. But Turkey’s parliament still needs to approve Sweden’s membership.

Clearly mindful of the controversy, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in late June that “the Quran is sacred for Muslims and should be sacred for others.” 

Putin has also seen the burnings as an opening to court Muslims in Russia. 

“We know that in other countries they treat it differently,” Putin said during a visit to the Muslim-majority Russian autonomous republic of Dagestan. “They do not respect other people’s religious feelings and then they also have the audacity to say that it is not a crime.”

The roots of the problem

The Danish and Swedish laws are not unique—free speech statutes in the U.S. and other Western countries are similarly broad and do not specifically outlaw the burning of religious books. What’s turned a spotlight on the two Scandinavian countries is the recent spate of desecrations of the Quran; there have been at least five such incidents in the last month alone. 

Among the prime instigators is Rasmus Paludan, an extreme right-wing Danish politician, who held a series of rallies in Sweden last year at which he burned copies of the Quran. His actions led to rioting and violent clashes in the country. He had previously desecrated the Quran at rallies in Denmark in 2019; violence followed there as well.

It was Paludan who torched a Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm in January, an act that worsened the rift between Turkey and other NATO members over Sweden’s membership bid.

Paludan threatened to do the same in the U.K. in March, but was banned from entering the country. The British government said that his visit “would not be conducive with the public good.” 

Attention to Paludan and the Turkey-Sweden rift seemed to trigger more burnings. Monday’s was the work of two Iraqi immigrants to Sweden who have expressed hardline anti-Muslim views, and who held a similar protest outside a Stockholm mosque in June. 

They filed the necessary applications with police and were granted permits to protest under Sweden’s freedom of assembly and speech laws. Far-right nationalists took advantage of similar laws in Denmark when they filmed themselves burning what they claimed was a Quran in front of the Iraqi embassy in late July. 

Several Islamic nations are now arguing that the free-speech safeguards go too far. Sweden and Denmark have laws that make hate speech a crime, but those laws do not extend to criticism of religion or the burning of religious books. 

Earlier this year, following Paludan’s burning of a Quran in Sweden, police there tried to block subsequent protests, citing security concerns. But Swedish courts ultimately ruled that the police were in the wrong, saying the concerns did not rise to a level that merited the overriding of the country’s free speech and freedom of assembly laws.

Last month, as if to show that desecration was permissible against all faiths, police in Sweden granted a permit to a protester to burn the Torah and the Bible outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm. The protester, a Muslim man from western Sweden, ultimately decided not to burn the holy books, saying it would have been against the Quran to do so.

The (controversial) road ahead

The growing controversy over the Quran burnings may lead to government intervention.

In Denmark, the country’s foreign ministry said this week that the government was looking at ways of stepping in when “other countries, cultures, and religions are being insulted, and where this could have significant negative consequences for Denmark.” 

Yet the ministry was also careful to say that any interventions would only take place “within the framework of the constitutionally protected freedom of expression and in a manner that does not change the fact that freedom of expression in Denmark has very broad scope.” 

While it is unclear what that might mean in terms of government action, officials have floated the possibility of new legislation barring the burning of holy books in certain circumstances.

Sweden, too, is trying to find ways to stem the desecrations—although it is also treading carefully, particularly given the court ruling earlier this year. In addition to backlash from Islamic governments, Sweden is also concerned about the threat of terrorism. Swedish security services said last week that the desecrations had led to a change in the perception of the country from one that is tolerant to one that is “hostile to Islam and Muslims, where attacks on Muslims are sanctioned by the state and where Muslim children can be kidnapped by social services.” 

And this, it warned, could fuel threats from "from individuals within the violent Islamist milieu.” 

“We stand up for the Swedish freedom of speech,” Kristersson, the Swedish Prime Minister, said at a news conference Tuesday, even as he appealed to people to exercise that freedom with care.

“In a free country like Sweden, you have a great deal of freedom. But with that great degree of freedom comes a great degree of responsibility. Everything that is legal is not appropriate. It can be awful but still lawful.”