Stockholm: Five alleged Islamists were detained on Tuesday for allegedly planning a "terrorist act" in relation to a Qur'an-burning protest, and a Swedish court on Monday overturned a police decision to prohibit two such protests.

Islam's holy book was burned outside Turkey's embassy in Stockholm in January, which infuriated the Muslim world, leading to weeks of demonstrations and calls for a boycott of Swedish goods while also delaying Sweden's application to join NATO.

In February, Sweden's Supreme Administrative Court overturned a police order prohibiting two subsequent Qur'an-burning demonstrations, ruling that security risks were insufficient to restrict the right to assembly.

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Judge Eva-Lotta Hedin stated in a statement that the "police authority did not have sufficient support for its decisions."

The Qur'an burnings outside the Turkish and Iraqi embassies in Stockholm were prohibited by Swedish police in February because they believed the protest in January had made Sweden "a higher priority target for attacks."

Turkiye found it particularly offensive that the police had permitted the protest. Sweden's NATO application has been blocked by Ankara because of what it sees as Stockholm's failure to take action against Kurdish groups it considers to be "terrorists."

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Politicians from Sweden condemned the burning of the Qur'an but supported the freedom of speech. Five suspects were reportedly detained early on Tuesday in coordinated raids in the central towns of Eskilstuna, Linkoping, and Strangnas, according to Sweden's Security Service.

According to Susanna Trehorning, deputy head of the security service's counterterrorism unit, "the current case is one of several that the Swedish Security Service has been working on... in connection with the high-profile Qur'an burning."

The suspects, according to her, were connected to global "Islamic extremism."
However, the Security Service stated that it did not think an attack was about to happen.

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"The Security Service frequently needs to take action before a threat materialises. We cannot postpone taking action until after a crime has been committed, the statement said.