(Local) Norway will not change its freedom of expression laws to prohibit the burning of the Quran, its foreign minister has said. However, those who damage the holy text can still be charged with hate speech.
A series of high-profile Quran burnings in Sweden and Denmark have made headlines worldwide and angered the governments of a number of Muslim countries in recent weeks.
In Norway, burning the Quran is permitted under freedom of speech laws. Norway’s minister of foreign affairs, Anniken Huitfeldt, has said that the government has no plans to change legislation to prohibit burning of the text.
“The government has no plans to change Norwegian regulations today,” she told the Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen.
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