Muslim man postpones Torah-burning protest outside Israel’s embassy in Sweden
(JTA) — A Muslim man postponed a protest that would have involved burning a Torah scroll in front of Stockholm’s Israeli embassy last weekend.
The man, identified in reports only as a 34-year-old Egyptian writer living in Sweden, is said to have received approval from Swedish authorities for the protest, which would have come in the wake of a far-right politician’s latest burning of a Koran outside a mosque in Denmark.
The man told Dagens Nyheter that he is trying to stir up debate and reveal a double standard in the treatment of Muslims and Jews in Sweden. He also said he believed a provocative protest outside the Israeli embassy would shed further light on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“My campaign is not aimed at the Swedish Jewish minority. I am standing outside the Israeli embassy because I want to remind about Israel’s killing of Palestinian children,” he said.
He added that he had only postponed his plan.
“I will still carry out my actions, it is important to me. I will submit a new application next week, he says.
Danish politician Rasmus Paludan – whose far-right Hard Line party is not in government – burned a Koran on January 21 in response to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s suggestions that his country may block Sweden’s attempt to join NATO. The burning sparked an outcry in Turkey and throughout the Islamic world. On Monday, the US State Department warned US citizens living in Turkey to avoid churches and synagogues, as they could become targets of retaliatory terrorist attacks.
Israel’s ambassador to Sweden, Ziv Nevo Kulman, tweeted last week that his embassy was working with Swedish authorities to successfully prevent the Torah burning. But a rabbi involved in interfaith work in Sweden told the Jerusalem Post he credited Muslim leaders for dissuading the protest organizer.
“The burning of the Torah scroll was prevented thanks to the leadership of the Muslim community in Sweden,” says Rabbi Moshe David HaCohen, who was b.former rabbi of the Jewish congregation in Malmö, in southern Sweden. HaCohen is now head of Amanah, an interfaith organization that connects Swedish Jews and Muslims.
Both Jewish and Muslim clergy had spoken out against the desecration of holy texts as a form of protest since the burning of the Koran.
“It is with deep concern that we once again witness Islamophobic manifestations of hatred on Sweden’s streets. Once again, racists and extremists are allowed to abuse democracy and freedom of expression to normalize hatred against one of the religious minorities in Sweden, by burning the Koran,” Amanah said in a statement.