Swedish rabbi: Muslim leadership helped to cancel antisemitic protest
The Foreign affairs ministry announced on Thursday that it succeeded in canceling a planned demonstration in front of the Israeli embassy in stockholm, which was supposed to include the burning of a Torah scroll.
speaking with The Jerusalem Post, a swedish-Israeli rabbi shared that it was actually leadership from the local swedish muslim community that assisted in persuading the organizer to cancel the provocative act.
according to swedish media, an egyptian writer who lives in sweden recently submitted a request for this demonstration to the local police.
after the publication of the planned demonstration on Israeli radio, the Foreign affairs ministry stated: “We acted immediately and decisively in order to prevent the shocking and humiliating event from taking place.”
according to reports, the stockholm police was going to allow the protest to take place, since it is considered as freedom of expression. a week earlier, a similar demonstration took place in front of the Turkish embassy, in which a Koran was burned.
“The burning of the Torah scroll was prevented thanks to the leadership of the muslim community in sweden,” rabbi moshe david haCohen told the Post.
haCohen is the co-founder and project director of amanah, a swedish organization that promotes dialogue and connections between religious minorities, mainly muslims and jews. amanah is based on the personal relationship and dialogue that was established between Imam salahuddin Barakat and haCohen. haCohen was formerly the rabbi of the malmö jewish community in the southern part of sweden and now lives in Israel, but visits sweden regularly.
he explained that “when we reached a situation where sweden insisted on the right to freedom of expression [before the planned demonstration of the Torah scroll], those who worked behind the scenes and approached the egyptian writer were people from the muslim community in stockholm and also the muslim leadership – associated with the amanah organization. We at amanah have been working for cooperation on mutual religious and minority issues in sweden for five years.”
he added that following the burning of Koran books outside of the Turkish embassy in sweden, “the jewish communities, in cooperation with amanah, issued a statement on behalf of all the jewish communities in support of the muslim community. We issued a statement strongly condemning the burning of the Koran and demanded changing the law, by limiting the laws of freedom of speech.”
In the joint statement, the swedish jewish communities and amanah said that “it is with deep concern that we once again witness Islamophobic hate manifestations in the streets of sweden. once again, racists and extremists are allowed to abuse democracy and freedom of speech in order to normalize hate against one of the religious minorities in sweden, by burning the Koran.
“our tragic european history has taught us that book burnings often signal the onset of the normalization of hatred towards a group in society,” the statement said. “historically against jews and currently against muslims. not recognizing these manifestations of hate as expression of threats and incitement against ethnic groups constitutes a neglect of history.”
They concluded by saying that they wish to express their “support to the swedish muslim community and clearly state that every action and sign of prejudice
and hatred is unacceptable.”
according to swedish DN news, the egyptian writer is an unnamed 34-year-old man. he told DN that he was advised against carrying out his plans by representatives from the Islamic league in stockholm’s mosque, and was quoted saying that “they [the Islamic league] say it is against Islam and I wouldn’t be representing muslims when burning a copy of the Torah outside the Israeli embassy.” he added that “it’s okay – I would be representing myself.”
The writer submitted an application for a police permit to hold his demonstrations on saturday, january 28 at 1 p.m. yet he told DN on Thursday afternoon that he has decided to postpone his planned actions “for a couple of weeks.” according to the report, he was also approached by prime minister ulf Kristersson, who asked him to “tone it down.”
according to rabbi haCohen, a further meeting with the author and muslim leadership took place through the mediation of amanah, in which he decided to cancel the request entirely.
The 34-year-old explained to DN that he is “tired of his tax money going towards protecting right wing extremist rasmus paludan’s repeated Koran burnings,” most recently outside the Turkish embassy. his actions are intended to claim that swedish law is hypocritical.