Swedish Priest Convicted Over Koran Burning - Cleared for 'No Muslims' Chant

STOCKHOLM - Jade Sandberg, the Swedish priest known for burning the Koran in public, has been convicted of incitement against an ethnic or religious group over one protest - and acquitted over another where she shouted "no Muslims on our streets" outside Stockholm's main mosque.

The Stockholm District Court ruled that even harsh and provocative criticism of religion is protected by free speech, but found that she crossed the line on one occasion. She was given a suspended sentence and a fine.

Convicted Over the Odenplan Protest

The conviction concerns a demonstration at Odenplan in central Stockholm on 15 March 2024. Sandberg and a male companion opened with a street play in which she wore a veil while he played a jihadist, using a doll to show a violent man abusing a child.

She then took off the veil and spoke through a megaphone while holding a large cross. She said Muslims must leave Sweden, the Nordic countries and Europe, made sweeping claims about Muslim men's treatment of European women, and pointed at people in the crowd - including a woman holding a Koran - calling them jihadists. She also kicked, threw and set fire to copies of the Koran.

The court agreed with the prosecutor that this amounted to a hate-speech offence. But it drew an important line: saying that Muslims should leave Sweden and Europe was not, on its own, a crime.

"When it comes to the statements that Muslims must move to another continent and may not stay in Sweden, the Nordic countries and Europe, that Muslims should go home and back to their countries, the court considers that these statements - seen on their own - cannot be regarded as an expression of contempt in the criminal-law sense," the ruling says.

What tipped the balance, according to the court, was the combination with her generalising claims about Muslim men and her failure to separate ordinary Muslims from Islamists and terrorists. Singling out a woman in Muslim clothing as a jihadist without any basis also weighed against her.

Burning the Koran Is Not a Crime

On the Koran burnings themselves, the court was blunt. Sweden has no blasphemy law, and religious texts have no special legal protection, it noted, citing an appeals court ruling from October 2025.

"There is no ban on blasphemy in Swedish legislation. It is therefore no longer a crime to publicly mock or insult a religion, its holy scripture or its prophet, and religious texts have no special protection," the court wrote.

Criticism of a religion will inevitably be felt as criticism of its believers, the court added, and treating that as a crime would amount to a ban on criticising religion. Sandberg was therefore not convicted for burning the book, but for the overall message the court said she sent at Odenplan.

Cleared Over "No Muslims on Our Streets"

The second charge concerned a protest on 10 April 2024 right outside the Stockholm Mosque on Södermalm. Standing above the entrance, Sandberg shouted through a megaphone: "No Muslims on our streets, no Islam on our streets." Below her, counter-protesters chanted "no fascists on our streets" and "no Nazis on our streets".

The court accepted that the words could be seen as offensive and intended to provoke. But this time she burned no Koran and called no one a terrorist, and her chant was essentially a shouting match with counter-protesters who were hurling insults at her and drowning her out.

"In a democratic society there must be room for the free formation of opinions, even if those opinions do not match values generally accepted in society," the court wrote, adding that "no Islam on our streets" was religious criticism protected by free speech. That charge was dismissed.

The acquittal was not unanimous. Lay judge Göran Olsson wanted her convicted on that count too, but was outvoted. The court was united on the Odenplan conviction.

Suspended Sentence and a Small Fine

Sandberg was handed a suspended sentence and 30 day-fines of 100 kronor, a total of 3,000 kronor, plus 1,000 kronor to the national crime victims' fund. She must also repay 17,648 kronor of her public defence costs - 21,648 kronor in all.

The court said the offence really merited 50 day-fines, but cut the number because more than two and a half years had passed since the protest - a delay it described as unusually long and not her fault.

Sandberg denied any crime throughout. She did not dispute what she said and did, but argued that she was criticising Islam and violent extremism, not Muslims as a group. The verdict can be appealed to the Svea Court of Appeal until 10 November.

A Priest Who Lost Her Post

Sandberg was ordained in the Allmänna apostoliska kyrkan, a small Old Catholic church, but left her post in 2023 after a dispute over her campaigning against Islam. She told Samnytt that her plans to burn the Koran were part of the reason, but that she still considers herself a priest.

She has said she lives with harassment and death threats, and that she has lost faith in the police and the courts. Before the trial she called the prosecution "an attack on my freedom of speech", stressing that her protests had police permits.

"I don't think I crossed any line," she said of the mosque protest. On that point, the court has now agreed with her.