Turkey Charges Ten, Including Swedish Politician and Iraqi Refugee, in Stockholm Quran Burning

Prosecutors in Ankara issued arrest warrants for a far-right politician, an Iraqi Christian refugee, and eight others over protests in Sweden in which copies of the Quran were desecrated, Turkish Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç said Thursday night. 

The warrants were issued after a copy of the Quran was stomped on during a small protest in Stockholm on Thursday.

“I condemn the cowardly attack on our holy book, the Holy Quran, in front of the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm in Sweden,” Tunç said on Twitter. “It is unacceptable to allow these attacks under the guise of freedom and democracy.”

Tunç named two defendants: The right-wing Danish-Swedish provocateur Rasmus Paludan, who burnt a copy of the Quran in front of the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm in January, and Salwan Momika, who burned pages from the holy book outside a Swedish mosque last month, and who reportedly stomped on pages from a Quran on Thursday. 

Swedish news agency TT reported that Momika, with his back to the audience, had tried to ignite a Quran with green binding but couldn’t get the fire going.

It wasn’t immediately clear who the other eight defendants were.

“I’m laughing,” Paludan told the Expressen newspaper on Friday, noting that he hadn’t broken Swedish law. “I have no plans to visit Turkey.”

The largely symbolic Turkish warrants were part of a wave of anger in Muslim-majority countries over three recent protests in Sweden that involved desecration of the Quran.

Sweden’s embassy in Baghdad was sacked on Thursday and its ambassador expelled. In Tehran on Friday, hundreds of peaceful protesters blocked the streets with a sit-in in front of the Swedish embassy.

Tunç said the warrants were issued by the Ankara public prosecutor's office. 

“Investigations were launched for the crime of inciting the public to hatred and enmity due to their insulting acts against religious values, and arrest warrants were issued for Rasmus Paludan, Salwan Momika and eight other suspects,” he wrote.

Tunç called on the Swedish government to "immediately take measures to prevent this hate crime against Islam and all Muslims, and its authorities should initiate the necessary investigation into the aggressors."

Swedish prosecutors dropped an investigation of Paludan after the January desecration, telling news outlet DN that the protest "targeted a symbol of the religion and not the group itself, even if people are offended. That distinction is important."