Two men hold Quran burning protest outside Sweden’s parliament 

Sweden and Denmark have been hit with a wave of such protests in recent weeks.

Two men tore up and set fire to the Quran outside parliament in Stockholm today.

Footage shared online that Metro has decided not to publish showed Iraqi-born Salwan Momika and Salwan Najem stomping on the book before lighting it.

Both have held similar protests outside the main mosque and Iraq’s embassy in Sweden’s capital city this summer.

This is the latest such demonstration that police granted permission to in recent weeks, prompting outrage in Muslim countries.

‘I want to protest in front of Sweden’s parliament and demand that the Quran be banned,’ Mr Najem wrote in the application to the force.

As at earlier protests, the two men were the only participants, with a small group of counter-protesters gathering outside the police cordon.

While several applications for anti-Quran rallies have been rejected, courts have overruled those decisions, saying they infringed on freedom of speech.

Sweden has already seen its diplomatic relations with a number of Middle Eastern nations strained over previous protests. 

After several far-right, Denmark is considering banning burnings of the Quran or other religious texts over security and diplomatic concerns.

The Danish government said on Sunday it would seek to find a ‘legal tool’ to allow authorities to intervene in such protests, if deemed to entail ‘significant negative consequences for the country, not least with regard to security”.

‘The fact that we are signalling both in Denmark and abroad that we are working on it will hopefully help de-escalate the problems we are facing,’ foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said today.

‘It is not because we feel pressured to do so, but it is our political analysis that it is in the best interest of all of us.

‘We should not just sit and wait for this to explode.’

Separately, the Swedish government said this month it is also examining a similar solution.

But right-wing parties in both countries have denounced the initiatives, with some saying freedom of speech cannot be compromised.

Foreign minister Tobias Billstrom said he had sent letters to all 57 countries in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to explain Sweden’s right to assembly and condemned Islamophobic acts.

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