STOCKHOLM: Swedish police on Wednesday denied permission for a protest involving the burning of a Qur'an, following a January demonstration that angered Turkiye, putting Sweden’s pending NATO application on hold.
Protests are rarely banned by Swedish police as they are considered as a right under freedom of assembly, but police cited the risk that the protest could provoke terror attacks or attacks against Swedish interests.
The demonstration permit request was made by a small, little-known Swedish association, Apallarkerna, and was aimed at protesting against NATO membership, and like the earlier protest staged far-right activist, Rasmus Paludan, would involve the burning of a Qur'an in front of Turkiye’s Stockholm embassy.
“The burning of the Qur'an outside Turkiye embassy in January 2023 can be determined to have increased threats against both the Swedish society at large, but also against Sweden, Swedish interests abroad and Swedes abroad,” the police decision, read by AFP, said.
“Sweden has become a higher priority target for attacks,” it continued.
At the end of January, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Sweden, which Ankara already accused of harboring Kurdish “terrorists,” could no longer expect Turkiye to ratify its NATO membership bid, as long as burnings of the Qur'an were allowed.
Turkiye and Hungary are the last holdouts to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership, after the Scandinavian country broke decades of military non-alignment and applied following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Qur'an burning, carried out by Paludan behind the protection of a police officers and in front of cameras, spurred anti-Swedish demonstrations in several Muslim countries.
Negotiations with Turkiye on NATO accession have been suspended since then.
On Wednesday, the Swedish security service, Sapo, warned of an increased terrorist threat to Sweden and Swedish interests.
Swedish police blocks Qur'an burning protest
https://arab.news/b9gnx
Swedish police blocks Qur'an burning protest
- Police cited the risk that the protest could provoke terror attacks or attacks against Swedish interests
- “Sweden has become a higher priority target for attacks,” a police decision said
Faced with Trump, Greenlanders try to reassure their children
- Since Trump returned to the White House last year with a renewed ambition to seize Greenland, international politics has intruded into the Arctic island’s households
NUUK: In a coffee shop in Greenland’s capital Nuuk, Lykke Lynge looked fondly at her four kids as they sipped their hot chocolate, seemingly oblivious to the world’s convulsions.
Since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year with a renewed ambition to seize Greenland, international politics has intruded into the Arctic island’s households.
Dictated by the more or less threatening pronouncements of the US president, it has been an unsettling experience for some people here — but everyone is trying to reassure their children.
Lynge, a 42-year-old lawyer, relied on her Christian faith.
“There’s a lot of turmoil in the world,” she said. “But even if we love our country, we have even higher values that allow us to sleep soundly and not be afraid,” she said.
As early as January 27, 2025, one week after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Greenlandic authorities published a guide entitled “How to talk to children in times of uncertainty?“
“When somebody says they will come to take our country or they will bomb us or something, then of course children will get very scared because they cannot navigate for themselves in all this news,” said Tina Dam, chief program officer for Unicef in the Danish territory.
- Unanswerable questions -
This guide — to which the UN agency for children contributed — recommends parents remain calm and open, listen to their children and be sensitive to their feelings, and limit their own news consumption.
As in many parts of the world, social media, particularly TikTok, has become the primary source of information for young people.
Today, children have access to a lot of information not meant for them, said Dam — “and definitely not appropriate for their age,” she added.
“So that’s why we need to be aware of that as adults and be protective about our children and be able to talk with our children about the things they hear — because the rhetoric is quite aggressive.”
But reassuring children is difficult when you do not have the answers to many of the questions yourself.
Arnakkuluk Jo Kleist, a 41-year-old consultant, said she talked a lot with her 13-year-old daughter, Manumina.
The teenager is also immersed in TikTok videos but “doesn’t seem very nervous, luckily, as much as maybe we are,” she added.
“Sometimes there are questions she’s asking — about what if this happens — that I don’t have any answers to” — because no one actually has the answer to such questions, she said.
- ‘Dear Donald Trump’ -
The Arctic territory’s Inuit culture also helped, said Kleist.
“We have a history and we have conditions in our country where sometimes things happen and we are used to being in situations that are out of our control,” said Kleist.
“We try to adapt to it and say, well, what can I do in this situation?“
Some Greenlandic children and teenagers are also using social media to get their message out to the world.
Seven-year-old Marley and his 14-year-old sister Mila were behind a viral video viewed more than two million times on Instagram — the equivalent of 35 times the population of Greenland.
Serious in subject but lighthearted in tone, the boy addresses the American president.
“Dear Donald Trump, I have a message for you: you are making Greenlandic kids scared.”
Accompanied by hard stares, some serious finger-wagging and mostly straight faces, he and his sister go on to tell Trump: “Greenland is not for sale.”
“It’s a way to cope,” his mother, Paninnguaq Heilmann-Sigurdsen, told AFP of the video. “It’s kid-friendly, but also serious.
“I think it’s a balance between this is very serious, but also, this is with kids.”
