The Danish government presented to the press on Friday August 25 a bill to ban the burning of the Koran, after desecrations of the holy book of Islam caused tensions in several Muslim countries. The law will “prohibit the inappropriate treatment of objects of significant religious significance to a religious community,” Attorney General Peter Hummelgaard said.
The text targets the burning or trampling of these objects in a public place, but also in a private place if there is the intention of disseminating these desecrations more widely. The legal provision will therefore also apply to desecrations of the Bible, the Torah or religious symbols such as the crucifix. As for the Quran, burning it is a “fundamentally contemptuous and unsympathetic act” and “harms Denmark and Danish interests”, the Minister of Justice continued.
The bill will not cover “verbal or written expression” of such gestures, including caricatures, the minister clarified, saying Denmark continues to assert its strong commitment to freedom of expression despite criticism from some parties of the opposition who feel that he is neglecting her.
Denmark repealed the offense of blasphemy six years ago
If this bill is approved by the Folketinget, where the government has a majority, the offender will face a fine or a prison sentence of up to two years. Six years ago, Denmark repealed the offense of blasphemy, a 334-year-old provision that punished public insults to religions.
After the troubles aroused in Muslim countries following the desecration of the Koran in Denmark, the Scandinavian country had for a time tightened its border controls, before returning to normal on August 22. The burnings have “engendered great anger around the world,” Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen also said at the press briefing.
Denmark and its Swedish neighbor have thus crystallized the anger within Muslim countries. In Iraq, for example, hundreds of demonstrators supporting the influential religious leader Moqtada Al-Sadr tried at the end of July to march towards the Danish embassy in Baghdad. Also, at the end of July, Algeria announced that it had summoned the diplomatic representatives of Denmark and Sweden to protest against recent desecrations of the Koran in Copenhagen and Stockholm.
Situation “as uncertain” as it is “unpredictable”
“We have gone to great lengths to contain this anger. At present, the situation is quite calm, but also uncertain and unpredictable”, noted Lars Lokke Rasmussen: he predicts that in the “short term we will probably see more Quran burnings rather than less”, before the entry into force of the law.
In 2006, a wave of anti-Danish violence engulfed the Muslim world after the publication of cartoons of Muhammad. In Sweden, where similar degradations of the holy book of Muslims have taken place regularly for several months, the authorities are considering ways to limit the organization of demonstrations planning to burn the Koran, while respecting freedom of expression. Having become a “priority target” of jihadist organizations, according to its intelligence services, Sweden raised its terrorist alert level to 4 on a scale of 5 in mid-August.
In Denmark, he has been at this level “for several years”, Danish intelligence told Agence France-Presse at the time. “Although recent incidents have increased the threat, there is currently no reason to raise the threat level to ‘very serious’, i.e. Level 5,” they said.
