Sweden Will Justice 2 Men Burning The Al Quran

UNSPLASH ILLUSTRATION

JAKARTA - The Swedish prosecutor will try two men for the case of burning the Koran in an incident last year that sparked outrage in the Muslim world and raised fears of an attack by militant groups.

The two men have committed violations in the form of aggregation against ethnic or national groups in four separate events while burning the Islamic holy book outside the mosque and in other public places, the Swedish Prosecutor's Authority said in a statement.

Reported by Reuters on Wednesday, August 28, Sweden's domestic security agency raised terrorism alert levels as a result of the arson.

Meanwhile, neighboring Denmark, which also experienced a spate of burning the Koran, has tightened its laws to ban the practice.

"The two men were prosecuted because on the four occasions they had made statements and treated the Quran in a manner intended to express insults to Muslims because of their beliefs," said Senior Prosecutor Anna Hankkio in. Many Muslims rate the blasphemy of the Koran as a gross violation.

Evidence of the two men named Salwan Momika and Salwan Najem, most of them consisted of video recordings.

Momika, a refugee from Iraq, said she wanted to protest against Islamic institutions and banned her holy book.

The Swedish migration agency said it wanted to deport Momika for false information on her residence permit application, but the order would not have been carried out because she was at risk of being tortured in her home country.