Stockholm Quran Burner Says He’ll Burn Again, This Time Outside Iraq’s Embassy

The Iraqi immigrant who sparked anger and condemnation by burning pages of a Quran outside a Stockholm mosque said he will repeat his protest at Iraq’s embassy next week, Swedish media reported Friday. 

A host of Muslim countries blasted Sweden for allowing the demonstration on Wednesday by activist Salwan Momika.

"We will eventually teach the arrogant Westerners that insulting Muslims is not freedom of thought," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday – ignoring Momika’s Iraqi heritage. 

In Baghdad, an angry mob briefly occupied the Swedish embassy Thursday, and the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Morocco each summoned their respective Swedish ambassadors to register their displeasure. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia condemned the protest, which happened on the last day of the important holiday of Eid al-Adha. 

Momika told Expressen newspaper that he’d received “thousands” of death threats. 

Still, he said, "Within 10 days I will burn the Iraqi flag and the Quran in front of Iraq's embassy in Stockholm."

Police said they were investigating Momika for incitement against an ethnic group.

“The police have the right to claim” incitement, he said, “and I have the right to deny and defend myself, and in the end it is the court that decides, and then I accept the court's decision, whatever it is.”

Caught between Sweden’s free speech protections and the international fallout, Sweden's prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, said the protest was "Iegal but not appropriate." 

Momika told Expressen he’d been a leader of the Iraqi branch of the secular Syrian Democratic People’s Party before immigrating to Sweden. He said the party’s militia had battled the Islamic State in Iraq’s Nineveh province. 

His protest on Wednesday further damaged Sweden’s efforts to join the NATO military alliance. Erdogan has so far vetoed Sweden’s ascension over the country’s free speech policies and its protection of emigre Kurds who oppose the Turkish government. 

In January a far-right activist burned a copy of the holy book outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. The police later twice denied permits to people seeking to perform additional anti-Quran protests, but a Swedish court reversed those decisions on free speech grounds, leading to Momika’s actions on Wednesday. 

There are some 140,000 Iraqi-born immigrants in Sweden, the New York Times reported, the second largest immigrant group after Swedish Finns.