Sweden charges right-wing activist over Quran burning

STOCKHOLM: Swedish prosecutors on Wednesday charged a Swedish-Danish right-wing activist with inciting ethnic hatred by desecrating and burning a Holy Quran in 2022.Rasmus Paludan, who has been convicted for racist abuse in the past, provoked rioting in Sweden in 2022 when he went on a tour of the country and publicly burned copies of the Holy Quran.

Prosecutors charged him with “agitation against an ethnic group” over a protest in the city of Malmo in April 2022 where he desecrated and set fire to the Muslim holy book, while making disparaging comments about Muslims, according to the charge sheet.

They also charged him with a second count of the same offence over another incident where he made derogatory remarks about Arabs and Africans.

Paludan later stoked international controversy when he set fire to a Quran outside Turkey´s embassy in the Swedish capital in January 2023.

The incident strained relations between the country at a time when Turkey was holding up Sweden´s Nato bid.

Relations between Sweden and several Middle Eastern countries were further strained by a slew of protests staged by Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika -- which also included desecrations of the Quran, over the summer of 2023. Iraqi protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad twice in July of that year, starting fires within the compound on the second occasion.