A Swedish court convicted a man of inciting ethnic hatred with a 2020 Quran burning, the first time the country’s court system has tried the charge for desecrating Islam’s holy book.
The Linkoping district court in central Sweden found the 27-year-old man guilty of “agitation against an ethnic group”, saying his action had “targetted Muslims and not Islam as a religion”, and “can hardly be said to have encouraged an objective and responsible debate”.
In September 2020, the man had recorded a video clip outside the Linkoping cathedral. The man published the video on social media platforms Twitter, now known as X, and YouTube.
A song was used in the video, a song popular among far-right groups and which calls for the religious cleansing of Muslims.
The court said “the music is strongly associated with the attack in Christchurch”, New Zealand, in 2019 in which an Australian white supremacist killed 51 people at two mosques.
