According to Swedish media, the guy who had threatened to burn both the Torah and the Holy Bible in front of the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm claimed on Saturday that he had decided against doing so.
The guy said he had no intention of burning any books despite Stockholm police giving him permission to organise a three-person demonstration; instead, he threw a lighter to the ground.
“I had no intention of burning any books. The man was quoted by broadcaster SVT as saying, “I’m a Muslim, we don’t burn [books],” to those assembled for the slated destruction.
Ahmad A., 32, said that the actual goal of the demonstration was to highlight the distinction between exercising one’s right to free speech and insulting other ethnic groups.
“I’m responding to the Koran-burners with this. I want to demonstrate that there are restrictions on the use of one’s right to free speech, said the Syrian-born resident of Sweden.
We must respect one another since we are members of the same society, I want to demonstrate. There will be war if I set fire to the Torah, another to the Bible, and another to the Koran. I wanted to demonstrate that it’s improper to carry it out,” he continued.
Just days prior to the scheduled Torah burning, another individual had set fire to portions of the Quran, the sacred book of Islam, prompting enormous outrage from Muslims all around the world.
Israeli and Jewish leaders condemn plans
Isaac Herzog, the president of Israel, referred to the most recent planned burning as an act of “pure hatred” in a statement before it took place.
The Jewish Bible, the immortal book of the Jewish people, will suffer the same fate, Herzog stated on Friday. “As the president of the state of Israel, I denounced the burning of the Quran, precious to Muslims around the globe.
Herzog declared that allowing the alteration of religious texts was an act of pure hatred and not a manifestation of freedom of speech. “The entire world must unite in vehemently denouncing this disgusting act.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, stated on Twitter that “The State of Israel takes this shameful decision, which harms the Holy of Holies of the Jewish people, very seriously.”
The World Zionist Organization’s leader, Yaakov Hagoel, stated that approving the burning of a Torah was “not freedom of expression, but antisemitism.”
A similar denunciation was made by the European Jewish Congress, which stated that “provocative, racist, antisemitic, and sickening acts such as these have no place in any civilised society.”
Why does Sweden permit the burning of sacred texts?
The applicant was given permission by the Stockholm Police to stage a public gathering on Saturday to burn both a Jewish or a Christian Bible.
Others view the book burning, which is guaranteed under the Swedish constitution but is seen as blasphemous by some religious adherents, as an illustration of freedom of expression. During the 1970s, Sweden repealed blasphemy laws.
An Iraqi Christian immigrant burned the Quran outdoors a Stockholm mosque last month during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, according to the guy who submitted the request organising Saturday’s protest.
Following that event, officials in Sweden declared that they had begun an enquiry for “agitation against a racial group,” adding that the guy had carried off the burning extremely near to the mosque.
Earlier this year, a similar demonstration organised by an far-right activist disrupted Sweden’s efforts to persuade Turkey to accept NATO membership.
OIC’s 57 members held an emergency meeting after Iraq, as well as Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco summoned Sweden’s ambassadors in protest over the Quran-burning incident.
Following the Quran burnings, the UN’s highest human rights council on Wednesday unanimously endorsed a resolution urging nations to do more to combat religious intolerance.
The government of Sweden likewise denounced the Quran-burning as “Islamophobic,” but it also noted that Sweden’s “constitutionally protected liberty of freedom of assembly, expression, and demonstration.”
