On 28th August, massive violence erupted in the Swedish city of Malmo where over 300 people had gathered to protest against anti-Islamic activities. As per the police and local media, the protestors threw objects at the police and burnt car tyres during the violence. More than 10 people were arrested in southern Sweden. Several police officers were injured in the violence. The violence subsided by the Saturday morning. An Imam Samir Muric said “Those who act like this have nothing to do with Islam.” The leader of the far-right Danish anti-immigration party Hard line, Rasmus Paludan was due to travel to Malmo to speak at Friday’s event which was being held on the same day as weekly prayers for the Muslim Sabbath. Malmo is the third largest city in Sweden and around 40% of its 320,000 inhabitants have foreign roots.
Beginning of the Riot:
Protest began in Sweden when a copy of the Quran was burnt in Malmo on 28th Aug by members of the far-right Danish party Stram Kurs (Hard Line). Earlier, the party’s leader Rasmus Paludan was denied permission to hold a meeting in Malmo about “Islamization in the Nordic countries”, where it was rumoured that the Quran would be burned. He was later arrested near Malmo. Paludan was invited by Swedish artist and provocateur Dan Park, who had previously been convicted of incitement against ethnic groups. Paludan is a Danish politician and lawyer who founded the far-right party Stam Kurs in 2017. He was noticed for making anti-Muslim videos on YouTube. In the month of June, he was convicted and sentenced to three months imprisonment on charges of racism for posting anti-Islamic videos on his party’s social media channels. He was also debarred from practicing law. In 2019, he was also sentenced to 14 days of conditional imprisonment for delivering a racist speech. He was close to getting into parliament in the last Danish elections with a policy based on deporting more than 300,000 Muslims from Denmark and banning Islam. Paludan last year had attracted media attention for burning a Quran wrapped in bacon. On 28th August, Paludan was barred from entering Sweden and was given a two year ban. The spokesperson for the police, Calle Persson, said that “We suspect that he was going to break the law in Sweden. There was also risk that his behaviour would pose a threat to society.” But his supporters continued the rally and many of them have been arrested for inciting racial hatred. Later Paludan put up a scathing message on Facebook. He wrote on Facebook that “Sent back and banned from Sweden for two years. However, rapists and murderers are always welcome!”
Meanwhile across the border in Norway, a group held an anti-Muslim demonstration Saturday during which one woman tore pages from the Quran and spat on it. The head of the United Nations Alliance of Civilization expressed unequivocal condemnation of the burning of the Quran by far-right extremists as despicable and totally unacceptable. Miguel Moratinos called of religious leaders of all faiths to denounce all violence based on religious beliefs, spokeswoman Nihal saad said that “Such deplorable acts perpetrated by hate-mongers and other radical groups incite violence and tear apart the fabric of our communities which are an affront to U.N values and the alliance which works to strengthen inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue.”
Malmo went up in smoke on the day of riot as hundreds of protestors set fire to vehicles and fought pitched battles with police. Also a collage of 16 picture showing badly injured faces of women is circulating on Twitter with the claim that this is what the immigrants did to Swedish women during the riots. BJP leader Gaurav Goel posted the collage on Twitter and wrote “Tolerance of Sweden has paved a way for them to be killed. Sweden allowed Jihadis to come and now the citizens of Sweden are brutally killed or injured, that is not an accident. It is a choice they have made.” But later it was found that the collage got viral was not related to the Sweden riot and the same was categorised as ‘fake news’. No death has been reported in the Sweden riot till now. This is not the first time when Sweden has seen rioting by immigrants. In 2017, riots erupted in a migrant neighbourhood of Stockholm after US President Donald Trump refereed to Sweden while speaking on problems caused by immigration.
Rajeev Ranjan @ Samacharline