A Swedish court found a guilty anti-islam activist on Monday of hate crimes for organizing public desecrations of the Sacred Koran, in a ruling transmitted five days after another man was also prosecuted by the incidents he was shot dead.
Salwan Najem, a Swedish citizen, received a suspended sentence and fines for the detention and derogatory comments he made about Muslims in the 2023 incidents, which caused concern and inspired anger towards Sweden in Muslim countries.
The relations between Sweden and several countries in the Middle East were tensioned by the couple’s protests. Iraqi protesters assaulted the Swedish embassy in Baghdad twice in July 2023, starting fires inside the complex on the second time. In August of that year, the Sweden Intelligence Service, toad, increased its threat level to four on a scale of one to five, saying that the Qur’an burns had turned the country into a “prioritized objective.”
His activist partner, the Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika, was shot dead last week the day he had to receive his verdict in a parallel case.
No suspect has yet been accused in that murder; Five people were arrested but then released. The Prime Minister of Sweden has said that a foreign state could have been behind him.
The profuses of the Sacred Koran 2023 made the balance between the rights of freedom of expression and the rules that protect ethnic and religious groups an important problem for Sweden, their Nordic neighbors and other European countries.
The Stockholm District Court said in a statement that Najem, 50 and Momika had desecrated the sacred book in several ways and made offensive statements directed towards Islam, representatives of religion and activities in the mosques.
“There is a broad scope in the framework of freedom of expression to be critical of a religion in a factual and objective debate,” said Judge Goran Lundahl in a statement.
“At the same time, expressing opinion about religion does not give one a free pass to do or say anything and everything without risking offending the group that has that belief,” he said.
“Even if the reason was to criticize the religion of Islam, actions and behavior surpassed by a clear margin which constitutes an objective debate and criticism. On all occasions, the demonstrations expressed contempt for the Muslim group, ”said Lundahl.
Najem was declared guilty of hate crimes for “having expressed contempt for the Muslim ethnic group due to his religious beliefs four times,” said the court.
He was given a suspended sentence, which in Sweden means that if he had another crime during a period of probation of two years, the court would reevaluate his sentence.
He was also ordered to pay a fine of 4,000 Kronor ($ 358).
Najem’s lawyer said he would appeal against the verdict.
“My client considers that his statements are within the scope of criticism of religion, which is covered by freedom of expression,” he said.
The court had abandoned the case against Momika after he was killed.
