Riots broke out in the southern Swedish city of Malmö on Sunday night, September 3rd, and lasted until the early hours of Monday, in response to a Quran burning. Police said they were pelted with rocks and dozens of cars were set on fire, and described the events as “a violent riot.” An angry crowd of mainly young people also set fire to tires and debris and some were seen throwing electric scooters, bicycles, and barriers in Malmö’s Rosengard neighbourhood, which has seen similar clashes in the past. Swedish publication Expressen reported on “people running back and forth smashing cars.”
Iraqi refugee and anti-Islamic activist Salwan Momika organised a protest and burned a copy of the Quran on Sunday in a square in Malmö, a city with a large Muslim population. Around 200 people showed up to watch the spectacle. Some members of the crowd threw stones at Momika, and a video from the scene showed some trying to break through the cordon before being stopped by police. In another video, a man could be seen trying to stop the police car that transported Momika from the location by getting in front of it. According to police, violence erupted after the organisers of the protest left the scene, and about a dozen rioters were detained.
Salwan Momika and Danish-Swedish activist Rasmus Paludan have been responsible for a number of protests involving the burning of the Quran in recent months. Many of these provocative acts were staged in Sweden, others in Denmark, usually outside the embassies of Muslim-majority nations or outside mosques. In retaliation, Iraqi protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad twice in July. The provocative acts have not only caused diplomatic tensions between the Scandinavian countries and Muslim-majority nations but have also resulted in threats by Islamist terrorists. Last month, Sweden raised its terrorist threat level to four on a scale of five.
The Danish government will propose a law to ban the public destruction of books and objects that are considered holy or have significance to religious communities, Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard announced on August 25th. Neighbouring Sweden has also said it is examining ways to legally limit Quran burnings but faces a tougher task in doing so, as both a number of governmental and opposition parties have vowed to protect free speech laws.
The ever-growing number of anti-Islamic protests and ensuing riots are not only affecting the lives of Swedes but also the lives of Christians in Iraq, reports Swedish national public television broadcaster, SVT. Salwan Momika moved to Sweden in 2018 after having fled Iraq as a refugee. Of Christian heritage, he now identifies as an atheist, but the city he comes from, Al-Hamdaniya, is predominantly Christian, and its inhabitants are bearing the brunt of Momika’s actions.
“If a Christian burns the Quran, people think that all Christians agree. What Salwan does affects us even though we are all completely against what he does,” a local man told SVT. The previous two decades of armed conflicts in Iraq—including the territorial expansion of the Islamic State terrorist group—has resulted in the steep decline of Christians in the Middle Eastern country. The number of Christians in Iraq today is estimated at 150,000, compared to 1.5 million in 2003.
