Morocco recalls ambassador to Sweden over Quran burning

Police during a protest where a koran was burned at the Stockholm mosque on June 28, 2023 in Stockholm, Sweden [Nils Petter Nilsson/Getty Images]

Morocco recalled its ambassador to Sweden late Wednesday after a man tore up and burned a Quran outside Stockholm’s central mosque, the country’s state news agency reported.

Morocco’s Foreign Ministry also summoned Sweden’s top diplomat in Rabat and conveyed the kingdom’s condemnation of the incident and its rejection of the “unacceptable” act, Anadolu Agency reports.

Earlier Wednesday, a person identified as Salwan Momika burned a copy of the Muslim holy book under police protection in front of Stockholm Mosque.

The incident occurred on the first day of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

On June 12, a Swedish appeals court upheld a lower court’s decision to overturn a ban on Quran burning, ruling that police had no legal grounds to prevent two Quran burning protests earlier this year.

READ: Swedish police approve small anti-Koran demonstration at mosque

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.