Danish lawyer Rasmus Paludan burnt a copy of the Koran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm and then the following week in Copenhagen: he got the idea (and the money) from Chang Frick, a former collaborator of the Russian propaganda channel ‘Russia Today’, owner of the online newspaper ‘Nyheter Idag’ and a leading journalist in the TV channel ‘Risks’ that is financed by the ‘Swedish Democrats‘, the extreme right-wing nationalist and populist formation that supports Ulf Kristersson‘s government from outside. The ‘Swedish Democrats’ declared themselves uninvolved in the affair, while Frick admitted to having paid the expenses for the permission to hold the demonstration: ‘If I managed to sabotage the NATO accession process by paying an administrative fee of 320 kronor (about 32 euros) then I don’t know if the problem is me or if it is the whole NATO accession process,’ he said provocatively, adding: ‘I, then, did not tell them to burn the Koran but rather a certain flag. I wanted the action to be against Turkey’. Frick is known to be an admirer of Vladimir Putin as well as a supporter of Moscow’s cause, hostile to Nato enlargement that would have ‘negative implications’ for peace in Europe. ‘The Koran burning in Stockholm is clearly the work of Russian special services,’ said Oleksandr Danyliuk, an advisor to the Ukrainian Defence Ministry. Paludan’s staging in the Swedish capital had infuriated Ankara, which immediately cancelled the visit of Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist. Relations between the two countries were, however, already on an uphill slope: on 11 January, a dummy of Erdogan had been hung upside down in front of Stockholm City Hall in a sit-in in support of the Kurdish Pkk separatists. Demonstrations that for Ankara should be banned: ‘The Swedish government took part in this cowardly action by allowing it to take place,’ said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, while Kristersson appealed to the sacred freedom of expression. Turkey’s move should also be read in the light of domestic politics: on 14 May, presidential and parliamentary elections will be held, and in a country weakened by a deep economic crisis, Erdogan needs to reassure the more nationalist and religious parts of his ‘Popular Alliance’ in order to hope for yet another victory.
