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QURAN BURNINGS

Quran-burning activist Salwan Momika to face trial in Stockholm

Salwan Momika, the Iraqi activist who burned copies of the Quran at a string of protests in 2023, has been charged with four counts of incitement against an ethnic group.

Published: 28 August 2024 12:10 CEST
Quran-burning activist Salwan Momika to face trial in Stockholm
Quran-burning activist Salwan Momika at a protest last year. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Momika, together with his accomplice Salwan Najem, carried out a series of anti-Islamic demonstrations in Sweden last summer, several of which involved him burning copies of the Quran, the holy book of Islam. 

Najem was also charged on Wednesday on four counts of incitement against an ethnic group (hets mot folkgrupp) and one count of benefit fraud.

The evidence against them is primarily video evidence, according to the prosecutor.

“The two men have both been charged with making statements and handling a Quran on these four occasions in a manner intended to express contempt for Muslims on account of their faith,” senior prosecutor Anna Hankkio wrote in a statement.

“It is my opinion that the men’s statements and actions consist of incitement against an ethnic group, and it’s important that it is tried in court,” she added.

Momika’s Quran burnings sparked widespread outrage and condemnation in Muslim countries.

Iraqi protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad twice in July 2023, starting fires within the compound on the second occasion.

The Swedish government condemned the desecrations of the Quran but stressed the country’s laws regarding freedom of speech and assembly.

Sweden’s intelligence agency heightened its terror alert level last summer to four on a scale of five after the angry reactions made the country a “prioritised target”.

The Swedish Migration Agency revoked Momika’s residency permit in October 2023, citing false information in his original application, but he was granted a temporary one as it said there was an “impediment to enforcement” of a deportation to Iraq.

The month before, Iraq had requested his extradition over one of the Quran burnings.

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Momika moved from Sweden to Norway in March earlier this year, planning to seek asylum after his residency permit in Sweden was revoked. He was arrested in Norway on March 28th, one day after arriving and detained before he was deported back to Sweden in April.

Member comments

  3. I’ve lived in a middle eastern country almost all my life,under the dread and horror of violent and oppressive Islamic ideology,it’s a shame to see that you are so influenced by tactics and propaganda of extremist political-ideological groups like Ikhvan al moslemin,that you can’t anymore distinct between dangerous and regressive islamic ideology and people,any ideology should be harshly and constantly criticized and bashed,let alone a very primitive like Islam.don’t sell your freedom so short.

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POLITICS

Sweden Democrat justice committee chair steps down over hate crime suspicion

The Sweden Democrat head of parliament’s justice policy committee, Richard Jomshof, has stepped down pending an investigation into hate crimes.

Published: 13 September 2024 13:33 CEST
Updated: 13 September 2024 14:38 CEST
Sweden Democrat justice committee chair steps down over hate crime suspicion

Jomshof told news site Kvartal’s podcast that he had been called to questioning on Tuesday next week, where he’s been told he is to be formally informed he is suspected of agitation against an ethnic or national group (hets mot folkggrupp), a hate crime.

Prosecutor Joakim Zander confirmed the news, but declined to comment further.

“I can confirm what Jomshof said. He is to be heard as suspected on reasonable grounds of agitation against an ethnic or national group,” he told the TT newswire.

“Suspected on reasonable grounds” (skäligen misstänkt) is Sweden’s lower degree of suspicion, compared to the stronger “probable cause” (på sannolika skäl misstänkt).

The investigation relates to posts by other accounts which Jomshof republished on the X platform on May 28th.

One depicts a Muslim refugee family who is welcomed in a house which symbolises Europe, only to set the house on fire and exclaim “Islam first”. The other shows a Pakistani refugee who shouts for help and is rescued by a boat which symbolises England. He then attacks the family who helped him with a bat labelled “rape jihad”, according to TT.

Jomshof has stepped down from his position as chair of the justice committee while he’s under investigation.

“I don’t want this to be about my chairmanship of the committee, I don’t want the parties we collaborate with to get these questions again about whether or not they have confidence in me, but I want this to be about the issue at hand,” he said.

“The issue is Islamism, if you may criticise it or not, and that’s about free speech.”

It’s not the first time Jomshof has come under fire for his comments on Islam.

Last year, he called the Prophet Mohammed a “warlord, mass murderer, slave trader and bandit” in another post on X, sparking calls from the opposition for his resignation.

The Social Democrats on Friday urged Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, whose Moderate-led government relies on the Sweden Democrats’ support, not to let Jomshof return to the post as chair of the justice committee.

“The prime minister is to be the prime minister for the people as a whole,” said Ardalan Shekarabi, the Social Democrat deputy chairman of the justice committee, adding that it was “sad” that Jomshof had ever been elected chairman in the first place.

“When his party supports a person with clear extremist opinions, on this post, there’s no doubt that the cohesion of our society is damaged and that the government parties don’t stand up against hate and agitation,” TT quoted Shekarabi as saying.

Liberal party secretary Jakob Olofsgård, whose party is a member of the government but is seen as the coalition party that’s the furthest from the Sweden Democrats, wrote in a comment to TT: “I can say that I think it is reasonable that Richard Jomshof chooses to quit as chairman of the justice committee pending this process.”

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