Religious Freedom and Free Speech

🇸🇪 🇩🇰 We believe in religious freedom and free speech. We believe in the right to practice any religion you want, and we also believe in the right to criticise any religion you want. We can not allow the reinstatement of blasphemy laws in the free world. We can not allow anyone to threaten the security and stability of our open society by threatening us with violence if we do not change our laws on free speech and free expression - that is terrorism. The USA will stand with all of our Scandinavian allies, specifically Sweden and Denmark, on this issue.

For some people, mostly religious zealots, the burning of a religious text is insulting, and for some people, mostly modern liberals, it is pointless, vulgar, extremist, an act of religious intolerance, and an outdated issue from an era of religious dominance that our society overcame long ago. But for some people, who are coming from countries where extreme blasphemy laws still exist, where the religious dominance of society is still the norm, and where certain activities and freedoms we take for granted have been suppressed by specific religions, I imagine burning a religious text is actually quite liberating.

It's no coincidence that everyone that is involved in the book burnings are outsiders as the Swedish Prime Minister stated. I believe a far-right Danish politician was the first, and his reason for doing so is unknown to me. But most likely he was a useful tool of some Russian and/or Turkish trolls attempting to set Sweden up for the predicament they currently find themselves in. The rest of the book burning copycats were from Muslim countries, such as Iraq and Syria, and had sought asylum in Sweden. From what I understand none of the book burners are actually Swedish.

Should Sweden or Denmark allow themselves to be pressured into changing their free speech laws by outside governments and actors who most likely orchestrated this whole scenario simply so they could chip away at the free speech laws of liberal democracies? I say absolutely not, but I am not Swedish or Danish. The choice will be theirs.

The USA will stand with Sweden and Denmark no matter what happens, and we will defend Sweden as if they are already NATO territory. As far as the USA is concerned Sweden is already NATO territory, because any country that refuses to ratify Sweden's NATO membership will cease to be.

xo