2023-07-21 20:11:00
Thousands of demonstrators brandished copies of the Koran in several Muslim countries on Friday, targeting Sweden.
By VD with AFP Sweden is the target of these demonstrators after two events organized to desecrate the Koran. © SOHAIL SHAHZAD / EPA / EFE Published on 07/21/2023 at 8:11 p.m.
Demonstrators took to the streets on Friday in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon to denounce Sweden’s authorization of rallies organized to desecrate the Koran, amid diplomatic tensions between Stockholm and several Muslim countries. Swedish diplomacy said it had temporarily repatriated to Stockholm the operations and staff of its embassy in Baghdad, set on fire the day before by supporters of the influential Iraqi religious leader Moqtada Sadr.
It was to respond to his call that hundreds of people demonstrated on Friday in Baghdad after Friday prayers, but also in the city of Nassiriya and Najaf, chanting “No, no to Sweden”, “Yes, yes to the Koran”, according to AFP photographers. Sweden is the target of these demonstrators after two events organized to desecrate the Koran. Their instigator, Salwan Momika, an Iraqi refugee, had set fire to pages of the book at the end of June, before trampling it and tearing it to pieces on Thursday in Stockholm.
“Yes, yes to Islam”
In Tehran, hundreds of protesters waved Iranian flags and copies of the Koran on Friday. Others set fire to the Scandinavian country’s flag and threw eggs and tomatoes at the Swedish embassy, before dispersing. In Badgad, protected from the scorching sun by a sea of umbrellas, worshipers gathered on an avenue in the impoverished district of Madinet Sadr chanted “Yes, yes to Islam”, waving portraits of Moqtada Sadr, according to an AFP correspondent.
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The demonstrators set fire to rainbow flags, Moqtada Sadr seeing it as the best way to irritate Westerners and denounce a double standard, two measures consisting in defending LGBT + minorities but allowing the desecration of the Koran. “Through this demonstration, we want (…) the penalization of any desecration of holy books, those of Islam, Christianity, Judaism: these are all holy books”, explained Amer Shemal, a municipal employee.
“Unacceptable and unjustified”
Swedish police allowed Momika’s events in the name of freedom of assembly, saying that did not mean they approved. “Repeating these actions on the pretext of freedom of expression is unacceptable and unjustified”, castigated the head of Iranian diplomacy Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, on the phone with his Swedish counterpart.
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Kuwait said it was working for the holding of an “urgent meeting” of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the adoption of “concrete measures to ensure that such acts do not happen again”. These acts of Mr. Momika have already caused a diplomatic crisis between Sweden and Iraq, which decreed Thursday the expulsion of the Swedish ambassador. “Embassy operations and expatriate staff have been temporarily relocated to Stockholm for security reasons,” Swedish diplomacy replied on Friday. Twice attacked by Sadrist supporters, the embassy was set on fire Thursday before dawn.
Iraq has also announced that it has suspended the license of the Swedish giant Ericsson. The government nevertheless backtracked on Friday: an adviser to the Prime Minister, Farhad Alaaldin, assured journalists from the foreign press that “the contractual agreements” concluded by Baghdad “will be respected”, just as “no company has been suspended, not even Ericsson”. In Lebanon, hundreds of people gathered outside mosques in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, and in other cities.
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