After violent protests in Muslim countries, Denmark and Sweden want to take action against the burning of the Koran. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he was in close contact with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. “We are in the most difficult security situation since World War II and we know here that both states, state-like actors and individuals can take advantage of the situation,” Kristersson wrote on Instagram on Sunday evening.
The Danish government had previously announced that it would examine legal remedies to ban the burning of the Koran in front of foreign embassies. Religions can be criticized, said Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen. “But if you stand in front of a foreign embassy and burn a Koran or the Torah scroll in front of the Israeli embassy, it serves no purpose other than mockery.” But this endangers the collective security of the country, said the minister.
Recently, small groups had also burned copies of the Koran during Islamophobic actions in Sweden and Denmark. This led to angry protests and threats in several Muslim countries. The reactions in Iraq, whose government expelled the Swedish ambassador, were particularly violent. Earlier, demonstrators in Baghdad broke into the Swedish embassy and set fire to it.
