Over the course of 2023, an epidemic of Koran burnings convulsed Denmark and Sweden. Denmark responded by criminalizing the practice on diplomatic and security grounds. This infuriated free-speech campaigners who saw the move as a betrayal of Scandinavia's historic commitment to freedom of expression. In the process, Denmark missed an opportunity to explore Koran burning as a problem for democracies and identify tools other than criminalization to address it. This essay places the Danish response to Koran burning in its domestic and international context, showing how it fits into a broader global crisis of interpretation concerning the human right to free speech.
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David Kaye (2024) studied this question.
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