Quran burning in Sweden reminds of Europe's 'dark hours,' say anti-Islamophobia activists

By Feiza Ben Mohamed

NICE, France (AA) - Rasmus Paludan, an extremist Swedish-Danish politician, burned a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Quran, on Saturday outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm with both police protection and permission from the Swedish government.

Morocco, Qatar, Türkiye and many other countries – as well as social media users – condemned the act, expressing their concerns amid a rise of extremist tendencies in Europe.

Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Swiss academic, told Anadolu that those incidents were not the first of their kind to occur, and that similar acts had been perpetrated in the Netherlands and the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention center.

"It is not only a will to clash ideas but also to humiliate and dishonor," he said, adding: "The spirit that generates today reminds us of the dark hours of Europe at the time of the Second World War and the treatment of the Jews."

According to Ramadan, "these types of provocations" aiming for confrontation are "self-fulfilling prophecies where we trigger the emotions and the reaction of someone else" by harming sacred values, "in order to prove that they (these people) are not one of ours."

Lawyer Rafik Chekkat, the founder of an "Islamophobia" platform, also compared those acts to Europe's 20th century antisemitism.

"The anti-Muslim racism helps today reconfigure the political field in many countries in Europe, by letting far-right groups extend their audience," he said.

For Chekkat, the Muslim question and Islamophobia have become "catalysts" of the European far-right groups' reconfiguration.

He added that Türkiye was matched to "Islam" by European far-right militants and called on Muslims to remain calm in their reactions and "control their emotions" to avoid the trap set for them.

*Writing by Nur Asena Erturk in Ankara