Sweden riots over Koran burning: What’s happening? | Explain news
Several days of unrest in Sweden, triggered by a right-wing extremist group’s plan to burn copies of the Koran, injured at least 40 people when the police called for more resources to deal with the violence.
The burning of the Muslim holy book is a well-practiced stunt by the leader of the anti-immigration and anti-Islam group Hard Line, the Danish-Swedish politician Rasmus Paludan.
In order to raise support for the Danish parliamentary elections in September, Paludan announced a “tour” in Sweden, and planned to visit cities and towns with large Muslim populations with the intention of burning copies of the Koran during the holy month of Ramadan.
Where did the protests take place?
Violent riots broke out in the central Swedish city of Örebro on Friday when counter-protesters attacked the police ahead of a planned right-wing extremist demonstration.
Police said four police cars were set on fire and that at least four police officers and a civilian had been injured. Protesters threw stones and groups stormed police stations and tore down barriers.
Local media also reported clashes in the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby after Paludan set fire to a copy of the Koran last Friday.
On Sunday, police said at least 34 people were arrested in Linköping and Norrköping after about 150 protesters threw stones at police and set vehicles on fire.
Anders Thornberg, Sweden’s national police chief, said that he had never seen such violent riots.
The unrest in Norrköping came after Paludan said he planned to hold a rally there but never showed up. Three people are said to have been injured by gunfire and the police in Norrköping said that police “fired several warning shots” after being attacked.
“Three people appear to have been hit by ricochets and are now being treated in hospital,” police said in a statement. “All three injured have been arrested on suspicion of having committed criminal acts.”
The far-right party leader later said he stopped the demonstration because Swedish authorities have shown that “they are completely incapable of protecting themselves and me”.
“If I was seriously injured or killed due to the inadequacy of the police authority, then it would be very sad for Swedes, Danes and other northerners,” Hard Line said in a Facebook post.
In the city of Malmö, a bus caught fire after unknown perpetrators threw a burning object at the vehicle, reports SVT.
Who is Rasmus Paludan?
Paludan – whose father is a Swedish citizen – first came to public attention in 2017 when he started making anti-Muslim YouTube videos. He justified his stunts in Denmark – such as burning the Muslim holy book, sometimes wrapped in bacon – as a tribute to free speech.
“The enemy is Islam and Muslims. The best thing would be if there was not a single Muslim left on earth, then we would have reached our ultimate goal,” he said in a video from December 2018.
Paludan was sentenced to 14 days in prison in 2019 for racist speech in Denmark. One year later, he was facing a month in prison with another two months probation after being found guilty of 14 different charges of racism, defamation and risky driving.
Hard Line, or Stram Kurs in Swedish, did not manage to win a single seat in the latest Danish national election in 2019. Now Paludan plans to run again in the vote in June 2023, but he reportedly does not have the necessary number of signatures to secure his candidacy .
Has this happened before?
This is not the first time that violence has erupted against the Danish party’s plan to burn the holy book. In 2020 in Malmö, Sweden, Paludan was at the center of the riots where protesters set fire to cars due to similar attempts. He was banned from returning to Sweden for two years.
Paludan and his party Hard Line were banned from Belgium for a year in 2020 due to plans to burn the Koran in an area in Brussels that is largely occupied by Muslims. He was also deported from France after proposing the same in Paris.
How did the countries react?
Officials in several Muslim countries condemned the move, which sparked protests. The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that it called for the Swedish accusation in the capital Baghdad.
It warned that the incident could have “serious repercussions” on “relations between Sweden and Muslims in general, Muslim and Arab countries and Muslim communities in Europe”.
Saudi Arabia’s official news agency said the kingdom had “condemned the agitation by certain extremists in Sweden and their provocations against Muslims”.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry condemned “the hesitation to prevent provocative and Islamophobic acts … under the guise of freedom of expression”.
A demonstration was held outside the Swedish embassy in Iran’s capital Tehran.
In a tweet, the United Arab Emirates’ adviser to the president, Anwar Gargash, rejected “hatred” and “intolerance” against Islam.
Egypt “condemned the deliberate misuse of the Holy Qur’an,” adding that it is “among the extreme right-wing extremist methods that incite immigrants in general and Muslims in particular.”
Kuwait “expressed its utmost condemnation and disgust at the defamatory acts committed by Swedish extremists against the Holy Qur’an,” said the state news agency KUNA.
And the Jordanian Foreign Minister said that Hard Line’s actions “contradict all religious values and principles, principles of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and incite feelings of hatred and violence and threaten peaceful coexistence”.