In protest against the burning of a Koran outside a mosque in Stockholm, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, announced that Iran will withhold sending a new ambassador to Sweden.
During the Muslim Eid al Adha holidays, an individual tore up and burned a Koran outside Stockholm’s central mosque.
The Swedish police pressed charges against the man responsible for burning the sacred book, accusing him of inciting hatred against an ethnic or national group. In a newspaper interview, the individual identified himself as an Iraqi refugee seeking a ban on the Koran.
In response to the incident, Iran’s foreign ministry summoned Sweden’s charge d’affaires to express condemnation, citing it as an insult to the holiest Islamic sanctities.
Although the administrative procedures for appointing a new ambassador to Sweden have concluded, Iran has decided to postpone the dispatching process due to the Swedish government granting a permit for the desecration of the Holy Koran, as stated by Amirabdollahian on Twitter.
Despite recent rejections by Swedish police for anti-Koran demonstrations, the courts have overturned those decisions, citing freedom of speech as their basis.
The permit for Wednesday’s demonstration, which involved the burning of the Koran, acknowledged the potential foreign policy consequences but deemed the security risks and consequences associated with the act not significant enough to warrant rejection.
