TEHRAN - An activist outside the Israeli embassy in Sweden has protested against the sacrilegious acts of burning holy books but stopped short of his stated aim of burning the Jewish holy book, the Torah. 

Ahmad Alloush was accompanied by dozens of Swedish police officers, who appeared willing for the blasphemous act of burning the Torah to go ahead by standing back and watching on. 

The 32-year-old took out the book, holy to Jews around the world, along with a lighter from a bag. 

But he stopped short of setting the Torah ablaze, saying, "This is a response to the people who burn the Quran. I want to show that freedom of expression has limits that must be taken into account."

In his permit request to police, Alloush said that he wanted to burn the Torah and Bible in response to two recent incidents in which the Quran was set on fire in Sweden.

Police granted permission for the protest outside Israel's embassy in Stockholm to go ahead, saying they did not endorse the burning of religious texts, but failed to state they would prevent the act of burning the holy books from being carried out. 

The protest comes around two weeks after a man burned a copy of the Holy Quran in front of the largest mosque in the Swedish capital on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, at a time when the place of worship was packed with a strong number of Muslims performing prayers. 

A similar incident also occurred outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm this year in January, when a Swedish-Danish right-wing extremist carried out the same act of sacrilege against Islam. 

The second blasphemous action triggered more widespread anger across the Islamic world that saw protests flare up in different Muslims countries and the summoning up of Swedish ambassadors and envoys to foreign ministries in those countries. 

Swedish authorities gave permission for the burning of the Quran to be carried out.

Islamic governments and organizations said "freedom of expression" - which Swedish authorities claimed was the reason for allowing the Quran burning to go ahead - does not extend to hurting the feelings of 2 billion Muslims worldwide. 

They also condemned any acts of blasphemy against other religions as well.  

Many Muslim activists said the Quran burning was part of a wider Islamophobic campaign waged by the West. 

Burning the Quran, Islam’s holy book, is becoming quite common in the West, particularly in Europe. Burning the Torah or the Bible is something almost unheard of. 

On Wednesday, the Secretary-General of Lebanon's Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said the man who burnt the Quran in Stockholm was affiliated to the Israeli spy agency Mossad. 

The Hezbollah chief said it was part of an Israeli plot to wage a religious war between Muslims and the majority of Christian Western countries. 
A Christian clergy’s move in condemning the burning of the Quran greatly prevented the “sedition”, Nasrallah added, calling on Muslims to be cautious of the Israeli conspiracy. 

Alloush said at the site of his protest, "I want to show that we have to respect each other, we live in the same society. If I burn the Torah, another Bible, another Quran, there will be war here. What I wanted to show is that it's not right to do it."

He went on to bring out a Quran and criticized previous incidents where copies of the Islamic holy book were burned in Sweden and elsewhere. 

“If you want to criticize Islam, that is OK”, he said. “But burning the Quran is not freedom of expression ... it is an action."

Sweden, as well as authorities in other European nations, have previously granted permission for the burning of the Islamic holy book, claiming they fall under the pretext of the right to "freedom of speech" and "freedom of expression".

Alloush argued he just wanted to protest against the burning of the Quran, noting that “this is a response to those who burned the Quran, freedom of speech has its limits. I made people angry. They can be happy now."

Sweden has seen its global image tarnished after giving permission again two weeks ago for the burning of the Quran to go ahead. 

After days of condemnation from Muslim countries and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation as well as calls to boycott Swedish goods, the Swedish Foreign Ministry backtracked on the government's official position.

The ministry finally condemned the act as “Islamophobic”, stating, “The burning of the Quran, or any other holy text, is an offensive and disrespectful act and a clear provocation. Expressions of racism, xenophobia and related intolerance have no place in Sweden or Europe”.

According to a recent survey by Kanter Public, conducted on behalf of Swedish national television broadcaster SVT, most Swedish people support a ban on the public burning of religious texts such as the Quran or the Bible. 

The poll indicates how polarized the position of the Swedish government is, which allows such sacrilegious acts against Islam to go ahead unpunished. 

"As a religion of peace, Islam calls for respect for all religions, sacred personalities and holy scriptures," Pakistan's Foreign Ministry stated.

The threat of the Torah being burned led to outrage from senior Israeli officials. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had called it a “shameful decision” to allow such a protest to go ahead while Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he was heart-broken that a Jewish holy book could be burned.

The Israeli premier had made no such remarks when the Quran was burnt twice in Sweden this year, along with all the other blasphemous Islamic acts that have occurred across the West in the past. 

This is in stark contrast to Jewish groups in Sweden and elsewhere outside the occupied Palestinian territories. 

A Jewish leader in the Swedish city of Malmo, Rabbi Moshe David HaCohen, said there has been interfaith efforts in Sweden to stop the burning of all sacred books.

The Rabbi said Jewish people had expressed solidarity with Muslims after the burning of the Quran and are trying to work together to prevent the desecration of the Torah or any holy book. 

The real reason for the latest action, according to Alloush, was to draw attention to the difference between freedom of speech and offending an entire religion along with all its followers.