JEDDAH: A man was charged by Swedish police on Wednesday with “agitation against an ethnic group” after he desecrated and set fire to pages of the Qur’an outside the main mosque in Stockholm. Salwan Momika, 37, who fled from Iraq to Sweden several years ago, said he wanted to highlight the importance of freedom of speech. “This is democracy. It is in danger if they tell us we can’t do this,” he said. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Momika’s protest was “legal but not appropriate,” and it was up to the police to permit it or not.
They want to burn a Qur’an right outside Stockholm’s main Mosque. How is that not incitement to violence or racial hatred?
If I burned a copy of the Torah outside a Synagogue, would that just be an expression of ‘free speech’? Or would I not be giving a pretty unambiguous signal of both what I think of the people inside and the way that we should treat them?
This absolutely should not have been allowed to go ahead. It is incitement to violence and racial hatred.
How is it an incitement of violence and how is burning a religious text book racial hatred? It’s much more akin to how burning a US flag isn’t an incitement for violence against its citizen but rather an expression against the country itself or its ideals, or merely to express the freedom itself.
I think we’re all capable of recognising the important differences between burning a flag representing a particular state, or some aspect of its government or policies, and burning a Torah in front of a Synagogue, as happened frequently in Nazi Germany, or in this case burning a Qur’an in front of a Mosque.
It’s a hateful act designed to encourage hatred with the intention of turning that hatred into acts.
The person burning the Torah in front of a Synagogue is not saying “I disagree with the Torah’s rulings on x”, they’re saying "those who follow this religion are disgusting and we should do something about it."
The person who burns a LGBT pride flag is not saying “I think this movement oversteps the legitimate reach of the state”, they’re saying "those who are part of this group are disgusting and we should do something about it."
Same with the Qur’an.
It needlessly inflames tensions, encourages hatred and horrible acts towards Muslims, and both makes Muslims feel unsafe and directly contributes to making them unsafe. It’s not the sort of thing a decent, civilized society should tolerate.
A flag represents the state, religious text book represents the teachings of a religion, a pride flag represents the minorities.
Going out of your way to burn the book of a religious group in front of its gathering sites is obnoxious and counterproductive at best, and surely one could hold actual hatred along otherwise protected expression, but the religion itself and its teachings are not above criticism. As crude as burning a book may be, you’re inserting a lot of meaning in to it that just isn’t actually there.
They want to burn a Qur’an right outside Stockholm’s main Mosque. How is that not incitement to violence or racial hatred?
If I burned a copy of the Torah outside a Synagogue, would that just be an expression of ‘free speech’? Or would I not be giving a pretty unambiguous signal of both what I think of the people inside and the way that we should treat them?
This absolutely should not have been allowed to go ahead. It is incitement to violence and racial hatred.
How is it an incitement of violence and how is burning a religious text book racial hatred? It’s much more akin to how burning a US flag isn’t an incitement for violence against its citizen but rather an expression against the country itself or its ideals, or merely to express the freedom itself.
I think we’re all capable of recognising the important differences between burning a flag representing a particular state, or some aspect of its government or policies, and burning a Torah in front of a Synagogue, as happened frequently in Nazi Germany, or in this case burning a Qur’an in front of a Mosque.
It’s a hateful act designed to encourage hatred with the intention of turning that hatred into acts.
The person burning the Torah in front of a Synagogue is not saying “I disagree with the Torah’s rulings on x”, they’re saying "those who follow this religion are disgusting and we should do something about it."
The person who burns a LGBT pride flag is not saying “I think this movement oversteps the legitimate reach of the state”, they’re saying "those who are part of this group are disgusting and we should do something about it."
Same with the Qur’an.
It needlessly inflames tensions, encourages hatred and horrible acts towards Muslims, and both makes Muslims feel unsafe and directly contributes to making them unsafe. It’s not the sort of thing a decent, civilized society should tolerate.
A flag represents the state, religious text book represents the teachings of a religion, a pride flag represents the minorities.
Going out of your way to burn the book of a religious group in front of its gathering sites is obnoxious and counterproductive at best, and surely one could hold actual hatred along otherwise protected expression, but the religion itself and its teachings are not above criticism. As crude as burning a book may be, you’re inserting a lot of meaning in to it that just isn’t actually there.
In addition to all the good stuff the other guys says: BOOK BURNING HAS CONTEXT. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings?wprov=sfla1
It’s a single book, presumably purchased and owned by the person burning it. This is far out of context of cultural genocide.