The Iraqi who burned pages of a Koran in front of Stockholm's largest mosque on Wednesday, drawing the ire of the Muslim world, said Thursday he would repeat his gesture within ten days.
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Within ten days, I will burn the Iraqi flag and the Koran in front of the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm," Salwan Momika, a 37-year-old Iraqi who fled his country for Sweden, told Swedish daily Expressen.
Protesters in the embassy
He said he was aware of the impact of his gesture and had already received "thousands of death threats". Demonstrators briefly entered the Swedish embassy in Baghdad on Thursday in protest for an act condemned by many Muslim countries. On Wednesday, Salwan Momika trampled on a copy of the Koran before burning several pages in front of Stockholm's largest mosque on the first day of Eid al-Adha, the great festival of sacrifice celebrated by Muslims around the world.
Earlier in the day the police had announced to authorize "the gathering", considering that "the security risks" related to burning the Koran were "not likely to prohibit it". But at the end of the day, she announced that she was filing a complaint against the organizer, including for incitement to hatred.
Similar actions have taken place in the past in Sweden or other European countries, sometimes at the initiative of far-right movements, leading to demonstrations and diplomatic tensions. A demonstration in January in which a copy of the Koran was burned in Stockholm outside the Turkish embassy sparked anger across the Muslim world and protests and calls for a boycott of Swedish products.