Sweden’s Security Police have detained five men on suspicion of conspiracy to commit terrorist crimes, after a Quran-burning protest in Stockholm earlier this year.
The five men were detained during coordinated raids in three cities, Eskilstuna, Linkoping and Strangnas. The suspects are believed to have international links to violent extremism, the Security Police said, without identifying the suspects.
It said that the overall security situation in Sweden has worsened, as the country has become a target for Islamist extremists, but claimed there was no immediate terrorist threat in connection with the arrests.
"What I can say is that we can link this to Daesh*," Security Police spokeswoman Karin Lutz told Swedish media.
The security service stressed that this case is "one of several on which it has been working" since the protests that were "directed against Sweden in connection with the highly publicized burning of the Quran in January". Security Police deputy counter-terrorism chief Susanna Trehorning highlighted the "international calls for attacks that followed the protest".
The burning of a copy of Islam's holy book outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm by fringe Danish-Swedish politician Rasmus Paludan in January sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world and damaged Sweden's bid to join NATO, as Turkiye put negotiations on hold and said specifically it will not ratify Sweden's NATO application [as opposed to Finland's] as long as the burning of the Quran is permitted. The Quran-burning also sparked weeks of protests and calls to boycott Swedish goods.
Paludan argues that Muslim and Western European culture cannot coexist and justifies the Quran-burnings with the need to stand up for free speech. His party advocates a ban on Islam on account of its oppression of women, and a halt to all non-Western immigration to Denmark and Sweden.
Since the protest, condemned by government officials, Swedish police have denied permission to several demonstrations where the Quran was expected to be burnt. However, a Swedish court ruled on 5 April that such protests are protected by the country's constitution. The Supreme Administrative Court overturned a police decision to ban two subsequent Quran-burning protests in February, saying security concerns were not enough to limit the right to demonstrate.
"The police authority did not have sufficient support for its decisions," judge Eva-Lotta Hedin said in a statement.
Earlier, the Swedish police claimed that the January protest had made Sweden "a higher priority target for attacks". Reports have indicated that the Quran is the only religious text protected from burning by the Swedish Police.
* Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/"The Islamic State") is a terrorist organization banned in Russia and other countries.