Quran burned: Sweden to tighten internal border controls

If you are not a citizen of a Schengen country, it will now be difficult for you to enter Sweden. Sweden’s prime minister announced on Tuesday that controls on the country’s internal borders would be tightened after several burnings and desecrations of the Koran sparked a diplomatic crisis with several Muslim states.

“People with very weak ties to Sweden should not be able to come to Sweden to commit crimes or act against the security interests” of that country, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said in a conference press release, stressing that a formal decision on the matter would be made in Thursday.

Increased security checks

Specifically, citizens of other Schengen countries will be subject to enhanced security checks when they wish to travel to Sweden, said Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer, with whom the Prime Minister held a press conference. “Internal border control allows us to identify travelers who arrive (to us) and who may threaten our security,” he stressed, noting that the Swedish police would benefit from more funds to carry out these checks.

The statements come as Sweden finds itself embroiled in a diplomatic crisis with several Muslim states that accuse it of authorizing several desecrations of the Koran on its soil. On Monday, two men set fire to a copy of the Muslim holy book in front of the parliament building in Stockholm. At the end of June, the same two men burned several pages of the Koran in front of the largest mosque in the Swedish capital, and on July 20 they desecrated this text again, without burning it, in front of the Iraqi embassy.

Diplomatic tension

The move has sparked intense tension in the Muslim world, with the Swedish embassy in Baghdad set on fire before being temporarily repatriated to Stockholm, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) saying on Monday it was “disappointed” by his absence. her, about the measures taken by Sweden and Denmark, where similar events took place.

Sweden condemns these desecrations while defending the constitutional right to freedom of expression. At the same time, he increased his anti-terrorist vigilance, acknowledging that the ostentatious destruction of the Koran “increased the risks for Sweden” and the Swedes. But at the moment she does not intend to implement reforms that would ban the burning of religious texts.

However, the Prime Minister noted that one solution could be to place greater emphasis on security considerations in the police’s handling of assembly requests.