By Rosie Wrigglesworth, BA Theology, University of Oxford

On Thursday July 20^th, Salwan Momika, an Iraqi refugee in Sweden, desecrated a copy of the Holy Qur’an. News of Salwan Momika’s plans caused angered protesters to light a fire in the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad in the early hours of the day. Although he did not burn the Holy Book for a second time, the desecration has resulted in a wave of protests taking place throughout Muslim-majority countries, including: Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. 

These events have also reached the highest diplomatic channels. The Swedish Ambassador to Iraq was expelled on the 20^th of July and Saudi Arabia summoned the Swedish Charge d’Affaires to ‘to take all immediate and necessary measures to stop these disgraceful acts’. Salwan Momika’s actions were even used as a bargaining chip during Sweden’s knife-edge negotiations with Turkey to accede to the NATO alliance. The Turkish Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, tweeted that it was ‘unacceptable to allow anti-Islam protests in the name of freedom of expression.’

For Turkey’s government, shutting down protests is nothing new. However, Sweden prohibits legislation against protesters such as Salwan Momika. The only crime that could be cited is that of hate speech, which is defined as ‘a person who, in a statement or other communication that is disseminated, threatens or expresses contempt for a population group by allusion to race, colour, national or ethnic origin, religious belief, sexual orientation or transgender identity or expression is guilty of agitation against a population group’. However, as well as the revision of blasphemy laws in 1970, freedom of speech is also heavily emphasised in the constitution of Sweden with freedom of expression, information, assembly, demonstration, association and worship all being cited In Chapter 2, Article 1. These viewpoints were summarised in Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s comment that the Qur’an burning was “legal but not appropriate”. 

Pluralist democracies like Sweden therefore face a difficult question: How can respect for faith communities be reconciled with the inherently liberal value of free speech that Sweden espouses?  

Sweden cannot and should not risk its status as a liberal democracy, however, acknowledging the consequences of Salwan Momika’s actions is something that all ‘secular’ countries must consider. So, what does this mean?

Taking Islam as an example, it first means understanding the spectrum of intra-Islamic beliefs that exist, dismantling the homogenous and stereotypical view. It is only by holistically understanding a faith that acceptance and respect can be encouraged, and the seriousness of religious pluralism considered. 

This homogenous and stereotypical view is most obviously represented and promoted in Western Media. In polling conducted by the Centre for Media Monitoring for the Muslim Council of Britain between October 2018 and September 2019, almost sixty percent of articles in the UK (across all publications) were ‘identified as associating negative aspects and behaviour with Muslims or Islam’. More specifically, over one in five articles had a primary focus on Terrorism/Extremism. 

To combat this, consideration must be given to the misleading conflation of ‘Islamism’ with ‘political Islam’ – as put forward by a recent paper from The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. When political Islam is used as a substitute for Islamism (defined in the report as “ a spectrum of fundamentalist Muslim groups that share a totalitarian, political interpretation of Islam”) there is no recognised possibility of moderate Islam in keeping with representative politics. The report shows how this possibility is, and can be, a reality. Therefore, not all manifestations of Islam in politics are Islamist, something that both the UK Government, and media more broadly, seem to misunderstand, with the result of a greater bias against Muslims and Islam under the topics of Terrorism and Extremism. 

There are steps being taken to deal with this bias in the UK, such as the inquiry led by Professor Swaran Singh looking into discrimination, including Islamophobia, within the Conservative Party. The final report published in 2021 concluded that “anti-Muslim sentiment remains a problem within the party” (former Tory chairwoman Baroness Sayeeda Warsi did however question Professor Singh’s own impartiality based around his comments on the conflict in Kashmir). Clearly, there are many improvements still yet to be made, with a new review citing that ‘the implementation of some recommendations has been slow’ despite the fact that, as the recent events have shown, dealing with Islamophobia cannot be side-lined. 

The challenge for Sweden, and indeed all liberal democracies, is preventing the weaponization of free speech. Sweden must recognise the gravity of the provocative actions seen on its streets in recent weeks and, by taking steps to combat misrepresentations and engender a culture of tolerance and inclusivity, they can defend the right to free speech while upholding respect for faith communities.