More than forty people, including several minors, have been arrested in recent days in clashes in Sweden in Malmö, Örebro and Rinkeby in the wake of a “tour” by a far-right group wanting to burn the Koran. Swedish police on Monday brought the toll of the violence to 40 injured, including 26 police officers.
To cries of “Allah Akbar”, the first counter-demonstrations against the arrival in Sweden of the leader of the Danish anti-Islam party “Hard Line”, Rasmus Paludan, had degenerated Thursday into violence against the police, in neighborhoods with strong community Muslim from the Swedish cities of Norrköping and Linköping.
The rioting scenes then spread over the weekend to several other cities, where Rasmus Paludan, who has dual Danish and Swedish nationality, set fire to or planned to set fire to copies of the holy book of Islam.
The Swedish police, whose twenty vehicles were burned or damaged, consider that they were the main target of what they described as “violent riots”.
“A lot of things suggest that it was the police who were the main target, rather than the organizers,” Jonas Hysing, commander of special operations, told a press conference.
The violence culminated on Sunday when police had to fire warning shots in Norrkoping, wounding three people with gunshots they said were caused by ricochets.
Copies of the Quran burned
In Malmö, where Rasmus Paludan burned a Koran on Saturday, the night from Sunday to Monday was agitated, like the day before, with in particular a fire starting in a school.
From Denmark to Belgium via France, Rasmus Paludan has been accustomed in recent years to projects to set fire to copies of the Koran, generally in immigrant neighborhoods with a large Muslim population.
The events are often banned by the police, but sometimes tolerated in the name of freedom of demonstration despite the strong tensions caused by the rallies, like Thursday in Sweden.
The Arab-Muslim world in misunderstanding
The management of this anti-Islam tour has also aroused the condemnation of several Muslim countries: after Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Turkish diplomacy deplored on Monday “the hesitation to prevent provocative and Islamophobic acts (…) under the guise of freedom of expression”, while a demonstration took place in front of the Swedish embassy in Iran.
“Cities attacks in Sweden against our holy book, the Koran, show that the lessons of the past have not been learned”, affirmed the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Twitter, deploring that “hate crimes are openly tolerated under covered by freedom of expression”.
Press Release Regarding the Burning of the Quran by Islamophobes in Sweden https://t.co/x5zjDtT7V8 pic.twitter.com/HS3Qs07Jxy
—Turkish MFA (@MFATurkiye) April 18, 2022
Iraqi diplomacy had summoned the Swedish charge d’affaires on Sunday, denouncing an act “provocative for the feelings of Muslims and offensive for what is sacred to them”.
Saudi Arabia had also “condemned the actions of certain extremists in Sweden and their provocations against Muslims”, according to its official agency.
Monday was marked by a return to calm, with the departure from Sweden of Rasmus Paludan, who had returned to Denmark.