Korans burned in Sweden: 24 Muslim protesters arrested by police

Following anti-Muslim demonstrations where Korans were burned in Sweden, and counter-demonstrations by people denouncing these acts, 26 people were arrested, according to Swedish police.

For 4 days, Sweden has been the scene of racial and anti-Islam attacks and provocations. A hundred demonstrators gathered to criticize Stockholm’s laxity in the face of calls for hatred and the offense made to Muslims.

Gatherings of nearly 150 people in Norrköping, south of Stockholm, quickly erupted into clashes with police. They denounced a gathering of far-right, anti-Islam and anti-immigration supremacists who provoked Muslims by burning their holy book, the Koran, in front of them.

On Sunday, three people were shot and injured by the police, and their condition is not known. The day before, clashes took place in different districts of the city of Malmö, with stone throwing and Molotov cocktails against the police.

“The night was calm after yesterday’s + riots + in Navestad”, a district with a large Muslim population in the city of Norrköping. “The police have taken eight people into custody, suspected of violent riots,” the police said in a statement.

In the nearby town of Linköping, where unrest had also broken out, 18 people were taken into custody.

While the demonstrators expressing their anger are attacked by the police, the principal concerned by these provocations and who was at the origin of these altercations, he is still running and free, spreading his hatred and division in Sweden.

This is the Danish-Swedish Rasmus Paludan, who leads a far-right, fascist anti-immigration and anti-Islam “hard line” group. Since Thursday, he has been touring with his supporters in cities and neighborhoods with large Muslim populations to burn Korans or wrap them in pork ham.

Rasmus Paludan had been sentenced in Denmark for racist insults. On Saturday, he once again burned a Koran Malmö, despite protests that erupted as early as Thursday.

Iraqi diplomacy summoned the Swedish charge d’affaires, and denounced an act “provocative for the feelings of Muslims and offensive for what is sacred to them” in the face of the unpunished actions of Rasmus Paludan, who calls for riots by provoking feelings of Muslims and touching on their sacredness.

Saudi Arabia also “condemned the actions of certain extremists in Sweden and their provocations against Muslims”, according to its official agency.