STOCKHOLM — Riots across
Sweden sparked by a notorious
anti-immigrant provocateur threatening to tour the country burning the Quran
has challenged the country’s limits to free speech.
اضافة اعلان
Police clashed with groups of mostly masked young
men in several towns and cities after the anti-Islam Danish-Swedish politician
Rasmus Paludan announced his
Quran burning “tour” for the Muslim holy month of
Ramadam.
Swedish police insisted they had to grant permits
for Paludan’s incendiary events because of the country’s liberal freedom of
speech laws.
But several Muslim countries have reacted angrily,
with Iraq’s foreign ministry warning the affair could have “serious
repercussions” on “relations between Sweden and Muslims in general.”
Despite the outcry, justice minister Morgan
Johansson stressed the importance of protecting the country’s freedoms.
“We are living
in a democracy with far-reaching freedoms of speech and the press and we should
be very proud of that,” he said.
But he admitted that those freedoms were being used
by a “Danish extremist” to foster “hate, division, and violence,” which he
deplored.
Segregation
At least 40 people were hurt
— 26 of them police officers — and as many were arrested after days of rioting
over the Easter weekend in Norrkoping, Linkoping, Landskrona, Orebro, Malmo,
and the capital Stockholm.
A school was also set alight with 20 police vehicles
either damaged or destroyed.
But with Paludan announcing more events, many local
officials are having misgivings.
“Under these circumstances, the police should not
grant permits for more public gatherings,” Anna Thorn, city manager of
Norrkoping, told a press conference Tuesday.
Freedom of speech has historically enjoyed strong
protection in Sweden.
While police can deny permits for gatherings that
would constitute “incitement of against an ethnic group”, the bar is usually
high.
Much of the rioters’ fury was directed at police,
with national police chief Anders Thornberg even saying they “tried to kill
police officers”.
The Quran burnings were planned for areas with large
Muslim populations, which also happen to be neighborhoods that Swedish police
designate “vulnerable areas”.
The term refers to areas with “high levels of
poverty, high levels of people of a foreign background and by having criminal
networks exerting pressure on those living in or visiting these neighborhoods,”
Manne Gerell, an associate professor of Criminology at
Malmo University, told
AFP.
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