Photo: SWEDEN OUT/TT NEWS AGENCY VIA REUTERS / copyright
Dozens of people were arrested in Sweden after serious riots following calls to “burn the Koran” by an Islamophobic far-right group.
The clashes have been taking place consecutively since Thursday in several cities in the south of the country, where the far-right party Stram Kurs (Firm Course), led by the Danish-Swedish Rasmus Paludan, called the events.
Paludan said that they had burned the sacred text of Islam and that they would repeat the action, which occurs during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.
According to a police statement released this Monday, 18 people were arrested in Linköping and eight in Norrköping – with some 130. inhabitants and southwest of Stockholm- where some of the most intense rioting took place.
Paludan had threatened to hold another demonstration in that city on Sunday, prompting a group of counter-protesters to gather there, Deutsche Welle reported.
Local police said in a statement that officers fired “several warning shots” and that “three people were apparently hit” and are being treated at the hospital, but added that none of the injuries are life-threatening.
The night before, riots were reported in the southern city of Malmö, following the call for another “burning of the Koran” by the far-right group led by Paludan.
“A provocation”
The governments of Iran and Iraq called for consultations with the representatives Swedish representatives in their countries, and Saudi Arabia condemned what happened, considering it a “deliberate abuse of the holy Koran by some extremists in Sweden, and a provocation and incitement against Muslims”.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said the events have “serious implications for Sweden’s relations with all Muslims”.
The Swedish chargé d’affaires in Baghdad, Hakan Rooth, considered the acts a “serious offense” and a “provocation” towards Muslims.
Sweden’s national police chief Anders Thornberg said on Saturday that protesters showed disregard for the lives of policemen and added: “We have seen violent riots before, pbut this is something else”.
Protests against Stram’s threats Koran burning kurts have turned violent in Sweden before.
In 2020, there were several violent demonstrations, with car burnings and clashes in the city of Malmö.
Paludan, who was imprisoned for a month in 2020 for crimes of racism in Denmark, also has tried to plan Koran burnings in other European countries such as France and Belgium.
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