After a long period of silence, this is how the Danish Prime Minister spoke about the Quran burning crisis.

With the burning of Qur’ans in both Denmark and Sweden, the issue of insulting and burning Qur’ans and showing contempt for the Islamic religion has ignited across the Islamic world. The echo of this issue has reached various parts of the world, from Russia to the United States of America and many European countries. All of this while the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, remains silent, even though she is known for holding many conferences and appearing at them, as she did during the Corona crisis and recently with the events of the Russian-Ukrainian war. But this time she chose to remain silent, delegating the media appearances to the Foreign Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen. It seems that she is working on this issue behind the scenes, as is evident from the statement of the Swedish Foreign Minister, who told the media that he is in contact with the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, regarding the Qur’an burning crisis, which concerns both Denmark and Sweden.

As events escalated both internationally and domestically, the recommendations resulting from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation meeting, which opened the door for individual countries to take appropriate diplomatic, cultural, and commercial action against Denmark and Sweden, carried weight with the Danish Foreign Minister. Domestically, the government's announcement of its intention to intervene legally to prevent the burning of Qur'ans in front of embassies was met with strong opposition from seven parliamentary parties from both the right and left wings. After all this, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen finally appeared in television interviews on TV2 and DR on Thursday evening, justifying the government's desire for its aforementioned proposal by emphasizing that her party, the Social Democratic Party, was the only party that voted against repealing the blasphemy law, which was voted on in 2017 and succeeded with a large parliamentary majority in which all parliamentary parties participated except the Social Democratic Party.

These are some of the most prominent statements made by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen during the two meetings mentioned:

The proposed ban does not restrict freedom of expression.

- Books are for reading, not for burning

Freedom of expression is not absolute, as you cannot stand freely and talk about terrorism, applaud treason, or burn other people's flags. These are some of the rules of the game we have, of which we have more than 400 rules that restrict freedom of expression.

A referendum will not be held when there is legislative intervention to ban the burning of the Quran.

When we fight for freedom of expression, we are fighting for each other's right to say what we want. But freedom of expression is not without limits, and we need rules of the game.

I don't like people burning each other's books.

We are one of the oldest democracies in the world, a representative democracy, and that is a powerful force. You can vote for others when there are elections. I am a strong supporter of strong democratic institutions, namely the parliamentary government and the government of our people. If you disagree, when elections come, you can vote for others.

- There should not be a ban on burning the Quran only; the ban should be more comprehensive and include other holy books, as it concerns something bigger than one religious book.

I think it would be wrong for someone to stand up and burn the Bible, and I also think that the Torah should not be burned for the sake of those who belong to the Jewish faith.

Many of the countries we usually compare ourselves to don't burn other people's books either; Denmark and Sweden risk standing alone on the international stage. There's a lot at stake in Europe right now.

Everything we are currently doing in foreign policy is building partnerships and forging new alliances, and therefore there are quite a few people who are pleased by division. At least one person is pleased with this, and he is in Russia.

No specific date has been set for when the Ministry of Justice will be ready with a proposal for new legal intervention.

If I were to be completely honest, people react strongly to all kinds of discussions. I would urge you to be a little more mindful of the situation we are in. It's a new geopolitical reality where countries must try to work together.

– Right now, it’s about the safety and security of Danes.

– War has returned to Europe and now it is largely about building alliances, and we are spending a lot of time on that.

It's also about putting Denmark's values on the new world map. We've never been in this position before.

The Social Democrats voted against abolishing the blafsfemi clause in 2017 when I was chair, but one of the reasons was that it would be wrong for someone to have the idea of burning the Bible and I, as a member of the People's Church, would be very sad.

There has been a threat to Denmark for several years, and therefore the police, intelligence services and authorities are working seriously regarding the threat to the security of Danes.

- It concerns the security of Danes and the state of foreign policy and what we need to be able to do, as she was asked to deal with the fact that there is now a threat level of 4 out of 5 according to PET. - The Organization of Islamic Cooperation called on Sweden and Denmark to ban the burning of the Quran, but the Prime Minister clarifies that Denmark is not under external pressure on this basis.

She adds: We should only do what we believe is right. There is no reason to defend burning each other's books. It is unnecessary, and the argument must be compelling enough on its own.

The legislation we need should be determined by us, not by others. This is my clear recommendation to future governments and the majority in the Danish parliament.