Norway Bans Quran Burning Demonstration Following Turkey’s Complaints

2 Feb. () –

The Norwegian Police have prohibited for security reasons a demonstration called for Friday and where the burning of copies of the Koran was scheduled, hours after the Government of Turkey formally expressed its discomfort at this event.

A police spokesman, Martin Strand, has explained that the authorities cannot guarantee the security of the protest, for which reason he has confirmed the ban on holding it for the organizing organization, Sian, which advocates combating the “Islamization” of Norway, according to the NRK chain.

The Government of Turkey had summoned the Norwegian ambassador in Ankara on Thursday in anticipation of the demonstration, specifically to make it ugly that the authorities did not take measures to prevent a “provocation”. “It is clearly a hate crime,” official sources have alleged, quoted by the official Anatolia news agency.

For its part, the Norwegian government explained to NRK that the ambassador conveyed to his Turkish interlocutors that Friday’s rally does not have any institutional support, but at the same time he defended that freedom of expression is enshrined in the Constitution.

The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has also accused the Swedish Government of “allowing” the burning of the holy book of Islam, which in the Swedish case has resulted in a veto for its claimed incorporation into NATO, pending since May 2022.