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Sweden: The man who wanted to burn the Torah gives up his project

In response to the burning of the Koran, Ahmad A, a Muslim man, had requested permission to burn a Torah on Saturday, July 15, in front of the Israeli embassy in Stockholm... In the end, the young man did not do so, but took the opportunity to launch a debate on the limits of freedom of expression in Sweden.

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Ahmad A., a 32-year-old Muslim, who had claimed to want to burn a Torah and a Bible on Saturday, July 15, 2023, in Stockholm, abandoned his project, explaining that his intention was actually to denounce those who burn holy books like the Koran in Sweden. via REUTERS - TT NEWS AGENCY

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With our correspondent in Stockholm, Carlotta Morteo

Surrounded by a cordon of police officers and a swarm of journalists, the young man is a little intimidated.

« 

It is a response to people who burn the Quran. I want to show that freedom of expression has limits that must be taken into account," he explains.

" READ ALSO A man burns pages of the Koran in front of a mosque in Sweden, indignation in Turkey

Of Syrian origin, the 32-year-old refugee says he is a practicing Muslim. And it is because he is a Muslim, that he will not burn either today or ever, the sacred text of the Jews, the Torah.

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I want to show that we have to respect each other, we live in the same society. What I wanted to show is that it is not good to burn sacred books. If I burn the Torah, another the Bible, another the Koran... It will be war here," he said.

For him, as for Anne Slotte, a Swedish Catholic who came to observe the scene, burning religious books is a drift of the law on freedom of expression.

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Freedom of expression means discussing, debating, disagreeing. But what is the meaning of burning a book? Are you, symbolically, burning believers? The authors of the text? The substance of what is written? It's too vague. So the simplest interpretation is that you want to burn Jews or Muslims... " she says.

The debate on auto-da-fé is tearing Swedish society apart, which wants to protect the right to blasphemy without falling into incitement to hatred.

Read alsoKoran burned in Stockholm: OIC calls for "collective measures" to prevent such acts

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• Sweden
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• Islam
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