freedom of expression does not include hate-speech and inciting violence against minorities.

I wish we could remove the hate speech from scripture or ban the distribution of scripture which contains hate speech (like Torah, Bible and Quran). But I digress.

Publicly burning religious symbols is a pretty expressive form of hate speech against that religion, usually followed by burning people of that religion if allowed to.

I understand how it can be seen this way, and recognize it often was analogue in history. But I disagree to automatically equate the two.

From my point of view, these book burnings exist because other people take offense about them in a very violent way. Some do burn embassies, some kill people. They want us to submit to the rules of their specific religion, although we don’t believe in it. Some feel entitled to rage and anger when others don’t do what they’d find acceptable.

This is childish and encroaching, and a threat to freedom, and sadly also sometimes a threat to life. To please this attitude by succumbing seems wrong to me. Provoke them until they learn that their rights end where our rights begin.

The article does not talk about the motives of the protesters, so we don’t know in this particular case. There are cases where you are right; where book burnings are meant to incite hate and violence. There are cases when the opposite is true; book burnings to resist and protest encroachment and violence.