 A man tore up when burned a Quran outside Stockholm central mosque on June 28, an event that risks angering Turkey as Sweden bids to join NATO after Swedish police granted permission for the protest to take place. Police later charged the man with agitation against an ethnic or national group. A series of demonstrations in Sweden against Islam and for Kurdish rights have offended Ankara, whose backing Sweden needs to gain entry to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Sweden sought NATO membership in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, but alliance member Turkey has held up the process, accusing Sweden of harboring people it considers terrorists and demanding their extradition. Some 200 onlookers witnessed one of the two organizers tearing up pages of a copy of the Quran and wiping his shoes with it before putting bacon in it and setting the book on fire, whilst the other protesters spoke into a megaphone.