EXPLAINED: What could Sweden actually do to stop its Quran burnings?

Is it legal to burn the Quran in Sweden? 

Probably not, although there have as yet been no clear court rulings on this.  

"Most of the time, it is illegal," the former Supreme Court judge Göran Lambertz told The Local. "If you express hatred, disgust, or disregard for an ethnic or religious group, it is a crime."

The case of the Danish activist Rasmus Paludan, who burns the holy book at the same time as referring to Africa and the Middle East as “the low-IQ countries”, is particularly clear-cut, he said.

Under Sweden's hate law, hets mot folkgrupp ("agitation against an ethnic group"), his protests would be a crime. 

"When it comes to this guy Paludan, there's no difficulty at all. His burning of the Quran would always be considered illegal," he said. 

In March this year, Swedish prosecutors confirmed that Paludan had been called in for questioning on suspicion of committing hate crimes in connection with his 2022 Quran burnings. Paludan, however, has so far refused to leave Denmark.

So if it's probably illegal, why can't police stop it?

Under the Public Order Act, which governs the police's powers to issue or refuse permits for public demonstrations, the Swedish Police Authority may only refuse a permit if it is "necessary to do so with respect to public order or safety at the gathering or, as a direct consequence of the gathering, in its immediate surroundings". 

It is not enough for them to suspect that a crime will be committed. 

"Even if the Supreme Court had ruled it to be a criminal offence to burn the Quran, that is not the same thing as making the police able to stop it happening," said Christer Mattsson, director of the Segerstedt Institute at Gothenburg University, which studies how to combat violent extremist ideologies. "The offence can only be reported and investigated after it has taken place. Police are not allowed to interfere during the demonstration."

Why is it so hard for police to stop extremist demonstrations in general? 

Freedom of assembly (mötesfrihet), freedom to demonstrate (demonstrationsfrihet) and freedom of association (föreningsfrihet) are all strongly protected in the Instrument of Government, one of Sweden's four constitutional laws.

This is the reason why the Public Order Act is so restrictive. 

It is not enough for police to demonstrate that a protest risks causing riots outside embassies abroad, for example, or even that it might cause riots elsewhere in the city where it is taking place. 

This is why Sweden's administrative court ruled in April that police had been wrong in February to refuse a permit to burn the Quran to Salwan Momika, a refugee from Iraq, who wanted to protest against the Islamic religion. 

"The administrative court does not consider that the threat presented as the basis for the Police Authority's decision to deny the permits is sufficiently concrete and connected to the gathering in question," Eva-Lotta Hedin, a lawyer, told TT. 

This meant that when Momika applied again this month, police had no choice but to grant his request. 

What could Sweden's police and courts do to stop the Quran burnings? 

Lambertz argued that the police should have been quicker to prosecute Paludan under Sweden's hate laws for burning the Quran back in Easter 2022, and that the sooner the Supreme Court was able to give more clarity on the legality of burning or otherwise desecrating the Quran the better. 

"The big thing that we have done wrong in Sweden is that the police and prosecutors have not brought this to court as quickly as they should have. So there hasn't been a case before the court and there should have been a long time ago."

He put the delay down to the debate that sprung up in 2007 over the drawings of the Prophet Mohammed by the Swedish artist Lars Vilks. 

"It was because of the Mohammed caricatures, and people spoke up so quickly when this happened, even the Prime Minister said that this was protected by freedom of speech in Sweden, so I guess everyone then thought that it was." 

So what could the government or parliament do to give the police greater powers to stop Quran burnings? 

The quickest path would probably be to change the Public Order Act and indeed Sweden's justice minister, Gunnar Strömmer,revealed at the end of June that this was something his department was already considering. 

"It's clear that we need to analyse the legal situation in the light of the events of this spring and those court judgements," he told the Aftonbladet newspaper. "We are asking ourselves whether the law today is good, and whether there is any reason to adjust it in any way."

Lambertz said the act could be changed to enable police to deny permission for demonstrations where a crime is likely to be committed. 

"You could make it say that you should not permit a demonstration if the person who asks for permission says that they will be committing a crime," he said. 

Mattsson said that the government could also change the Public Order Law to give police greater powers to shut down demonstrations if they see that a crime is taking place, explaining that the Public Order Law already empowers police to close down demonstrations in some circumstances. 

"For instance, I cannot have a public gathering in central Stockholm showing pornographic acts. That would be stopped immediately," he said. "The justification would be that it would be offensive and upsetting to public order, and the police are then entitled and instructed to stop it immediately."

Another possible change in the law, Mattsson argued, would be to add a clause banning demonstrations within 100m of a religious minority's place of worship, a change which he said would also protect Jewish communities from harassment.

"I do understand that it would not be satisfactory to each and every Muslim in the world. But it would show that Sweden as a country does care for its minorities and does realise that minorities needs a stronger protection," he said. 

Is there any need to change the wording of Sweden's hate speech law itself? 

Lambertz argued that the law as currently framed is already strong enough.

The hets mot folkgrupp exception in Sweden's free speech law makes it a crime to "in speech or in any other message which spreads, threaten or express disdain for an ethnic group or other such group of people on the grounds of race, skin colour, nationality, ethnic origin, or religious faith". 

So, while it criminalises expressions of hatred of Muslims as a group, it does not criminalise criticism or even insults levied at Islam as a religion.

Lambertz argued that the language of the law already strikes the right balance. 

"You can't do anything by changing the law when it comes to the crime itself, because we do not want change the law so that blasphemy becomes a crime," he said. "Blasphemy is where you criticise the religion itself, or a god or something holy. Blasphemy should never be illegal." 

He argued there was no need to add language specifying that burning or desecrating the Quran is a hate act. This, he suggested, was something that could be determined by the courts, just as the courts have ruled on the use of the Nazi Swastika symbol. 

To what extent does Sweden's constitution prevent parliament from passing laws to make it easier to stop Quran burnings? 

Not as much as many assume. 

While freedom of assembly and freedom to demonstrate are protected in the Instrument of Government, they are both rights which the constitution expressly allows the parliament to constrain with new laws without making any changes to the constitutional laws themselves (which would require two parliamentary votes, one either side of an election). 

In the Instrument of Government, it says that new laws can restrict the freedom to demonstrate if they are “acceptable in a democratic society”, do not exceed what is “necessary with regard to the purpose which occasioned it” and are not so far-reaching as to "constitute a threat to the free shaping of opinion as one of the fundaments of democracy”.

Restrictions can also not be imposed “solely on grounds of a political, religious, cultural or other such opinion”.

A bigger obstacle is the sheer length of time it takes Sweden to make new laws. Any changes are unlikely to come into force before the current Quran crisis and Nato process are long forgotten.