Category Archives: Sweden

Gothenburg – counter-protest against Nazi anti-mosque demonstration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Police in Gothenburg sought to ward off clashes on Sunday as neo-Nazi demonstrators opposed to the construction of a new mosque met with resistance from counter-demonstrators. Police formed a human barrier as the demonstrators shouted slogans at each other from a distance of 100 metres at lunchtime on Sunday. “Our aim is to keep the two groups apart,” police spokesman Niklas Erikssontold news agency TT.

A heavy police presence prevented attempts from both sides to cross the lines just days before construction is scheduled to start on a new mosque at Keillers Park on the island of Hisingen.

Police said the anti-mosque demonstration, headed by known local neo-Nazis affiliated with the Nordisk Ungdom (Nordic Youth) group, consisted of around 100 people. Some 300 people joined the counter-demonstration led by Nätverket Mot Rasism (NetworkAgainst Racism), an anti-fascist umbrella group that has come in for stiff criticism for its tolerance of extreme elements.

Police said anti-mosque demonstrators had secured a permit for their rally, which started at midday. Their intention was to march toLindholmen and the premises of a construction firm set to begin work on the new mosque this Tuesday.

The Local, 11 April 2010

Far-right Swedish millionaire gives €5m to German anti-Islam party

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pro NRWSwedish far-right businessman Patrik Brinkmann has announced he will pour €5 million into the coffers of Pro NRW, an anti-Islam populist party based in Cologne. In a report to air Sunday night on Germany‘s public broadcaster WDR, Brinkmann says he fears Germany is becoming “too foreign” and that Sharia law will be introduced in the country.

“However, there are no, or very few, politicians who take this seriously,” Brinkmann said. “That’s why I believe that a new right wing (in Germany) can not only succeed, but in five or ten years be as large as the FPÖ in Austria or the SVP in Switzerland,” he added, referring to Austria’sFreedom Party and the Swiss People‘s Party, two far-right groups which have enjoyed a certain amount of electoral success.

The millionaire, who reportedly already has ties to Germany’s extreme-right NPD and DVU parties, will finance a building for Pro NRW to be used as an anti-Islam centre.

The Local, 23 January 2010

Sweden: pig’s head drawn on mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Sabirin mosque in Eskilstuna, Sweden, was attacked Monday. There have been several attacks against the community recently, and community representatives hope that the police will now investigate if the attacks are organized.

Servat Barzingi, head of the community: It’s very sad that it happens and many members are upset.  This is a place of worship and it’s peaceful people who come here and want to meet and pray.  We haven’t hurt anyone or wish ill for anyone.

On Monday someobdy drew a pig’s head on the door to the Sabirin mosque in Eskilstuna.  Under the pig’s head the perpetrator wrote “The prophet Mohammed”.

Last year the community was subjected to two attacks. In April windows were broken around the place and at the end of December their mailbox was torn down. Somebody wrote “no Muslims” (in English) on the door.

The Sabirin mosque has been a part of Eskilstuna since the early 70s and Servat Barzingi says the threats have increased dramatically in recent years.

Islam in Europe, 18 January 2010

Gunfire attack on Malmö mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Malmo MosqueAs of New Year’s Eve evening, police had no suspects for an attack against a mosque in Malmö earlier in the day when shots had been fired through the window of the building.

The imam was taken to hospital to treat minor cuts from glass splinters, but he was not struck by a bullet. He was allowed to leave the hospital after his cuts were bandaged.

Around five people, including the imam, were in an office following the evening prayers. “The imam was sitting in front of the computer when (we heard) a bang. At first I thought there had been an explosion,” one of the witnesses told Sydsvenskan newspaper.

Bejzat Becirov, head of the Islamic Center, said that he doesn’t believe the shots were aimed at a particular individual but rather at the mosque. “We receive threats all the time. Unfortunately, we have become immune to it. Despite all the incidents, the police have never arrested anyone,” he told TT news agency.

The Swedish Muslim Association (Sveriges Muslimska Förbund) said in a statement that they take the attack very seriously. The mosque in Malmö has reportedly been the target of several cases of attempted arson over the last ten years. “These criminals are being driven by islamophobia. The police must protect (Sweden’s) mosques and their followers against racist threats,” Mahmoud Aldebe, head of the association, said.

The Local, 2 January 2010

Via LoonWatch

Muslims don’t actually want to live in ghettos, shock survey finds

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims in EuropeMost of Europe’s Muslims want to live in mixed communities, not segregated neighbourhoods, a new report says.

The work by the Open Society Institute (OSI), an independent think-tank, looked at the social integration of Muslims in 11 West European cities. It calls for improved efforts to tackle discrimination.

Europe’s Muslim population is expected to double by 2025 and could reach 40 million. But data on them is very limited, OSI says.

The report says religious discrimination remains a critical barrier to their participation in European society, and the situation has worsened in recent years. The OSI says its aim is to promote tolerance and fairness.

Nazia Hussein, who supervised the work, says many Muslims are still seen as outsiders.

“The majority of Muslims that we’ve spoken to across 11 cities feel very strongly attached to their neighbourhood and city, they feel quite strongly attached to their country,” she told the BBC. “But at the same time they don’t believe that their fellow countrymen or the wider society sees them as either German or French or English.”

The report offers a series of snapshots from: the Netherlands (Amsterdam and Rotterdam), Belgium (Antwerp), Germany (Berlin and Hamburg), Denmark (Copenhagen), the UK (Leicester and London), France (Marseille and Paris) and Sweden (Stockholm).

BBC News, 15 December 2009

Islam is biggest threat to Sweden since World War II says far-right leader

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jimmie Akesson2With their party conference just barely over, the ultra right wing Sweden Democrats are creating headlines in Sweden again. In an article in Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet Jimmie Åkesson, party leader, writes that Islam is the greatest threat against Sweden since WWII.

According to Åkesson “today’s multicultural Swedish power elite is completely blind to the dangers of Islam”. He goes on to say that there are 10 Muslim terror organisations established in Sweden today, that Sweden has the highest number of rapes in Europe and that Muslim men are highly represented among the offenders. He concluded his article by saying that if the party is elected into parliament in 2010, he will do everything in his powers to “change the trend”.

Per Hultengård, lawyer for the Swedish Newspaper Publishers’ Association, told Aftonbladet that the article can be read as a warning to Swedish Muslims, not in the least due to Åkesson’s promise at the end. “I would take that as a threat,” said Per Hultengård to Aftonbladet. According to Jan Hjärpe, Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Lund, the rhetoric used by Åkesson has clear racist undertones. “This is the same kind of propaganda that was used by Nazi anti-Semites,” Hjärpe told Aftonbladet.

Aftonbladet‘s Jan Helin decided to print the article against the advice of legal experts. “I have decided to take that risk. Åkesson’s text is important because it shows clearly on what values a party, on its way into Parliament, rests on. You may think that he is right or wrong in his views. But through reading this article you get a chance to consider what the Sweden Democrats actually believe,” Helin writes in Aftonbladet.

In the latest opinion polls the Sweden Democrats received 4.7% of votes. This means that if elections were held today the party would get in to Parliament.

Radio Sweden, 19 October 2009

See also the response by Anna Waara, chairperson of Swedish Muslims for Peace and Justice, “What do the Sweden Democrats want to do with us Muslims?”, The Local, 21 October 2009

You can watch Alan Lake, the businessman who bankrolls the English Defence League, speaking at a Sweden Democrats meeting here and here.

Muslim women wearing headscarves subjected to daily abuse in Malmö

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Shoving, spitting, and ethnic slurs are a daily fact of life facing women bearing headscarves in Malmö, according to a new report.

The study, entitled Hemma och främmande i staden – kvinnor med slöja berättar (“At home and estranged in the city: tales of women with headscarves”) and published by the University of Malmö, examines the lives of 19 Malmö women who choose to wear headscarves.

The report is a compilation of stories detailing harassment and offensive remarks, such as a female cyclist in her fifties who slowed down and screamed “Muslim cunt” before pedaling off.

But the tales also relate how veiled women often try to avoid confrontation. They women included in the study remain stoic in the face of critical stares, avoid certain parts of the city, try to be overly friendly, or strike up conversations in which they attempt to explain the significance of their headscarves.

“Some see it as a sort of learning process. Almost like ‘if I tell you how it works then you don’t need to be afraid of me’,” said Carina Listerborn, a researcher with the Institute for Sustainable Urban Development, told the TT news agency.

The report is part of a larger project about urban violence being carried out in cooperation with Lund and Stockholm universities.

Listerborn said that the stories of the veiled women can help broaden the definition of violence, and that it doesn’t have to be restricted to fighting, kicking, and stabbings on city streets and public squares.

“There are other kinds of violence which also deserve to be highlighted,” she said.

The Local, 21 October 2009

Download the study here.

Man sentenced over Swedish mosque arson

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Östersunds-Posten reports that a 21-year-old man who caused a fire in a Muslim prayer room in Strömsund in August last year has been sentenced to eight months in prison for arson.

The Court of Appeal increased the punishment imposed earlier by Östersund’s District Court, where the sentence was probation for theft and vandalism.

The man was out with some friends in Strömsund, and when they passed a block of flats in the residential Tingvalla area he took them into a room in the basement that was used as a prayer room by Muslims.

The man stole some books and later that night returned to the prayer room. This time, he set fire to a curtain and the fire quickly spread through the premises.

The Appeal Court found the man guilty of arson. The prayer room would have been completely burnt out if outsiders had not intervened, and residents in the building could have been at risk if the fire had continued unchecked.

Under normal circumstances, the man would have been given a two-years prison sentence for arson, but the court reduced the sentence to eight months, and taking into account that the man was 19 when the crime was committed and that he had also completed community service in accordance with the District Court ruling.

Fascists gather in Derbyshire

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP membersFar-right activists from Europe spoke at the British National party’s annual gathering this weekend despite protests by more than 1,000 anti-fascists who blockaded the event for several hours.

Roberto Fiore, the leader of the Italian party Forza Nuova and a friend of the BNP leader Nick Griffin, spoke to several hundred people at the Red, White and Blue festival about the “threat to Europe from Islamic extremism” on Saturday night. Fiore, who once said he was happy to be described as a neo-fascist, was joined by Marc Abramson, from the Swedish National Democrats.

The annual Red, White and Blue event has been held on a farm owned by a BNP member near Codnor, Derbyshire, for the past three years, and is described by the far-right party as a family festival. However, the mood at the event threatened to turn ugly on Saturday as far-right supporters outside the camp gave fascist salutes to protesters and shouted “Sieg Heil”.

Weyman Bennett from Unite Against Fascism, one of the groups who organised Saturday’s demonstration, said it had been a success. “We managed to disrupt the event with peaceful direct action but the attendance of people like Fiore and the actions of some BNP sympathisers shows the real extremism that we are facing,” he said.

Guardian, 17 August 2009

See also “A day to remember in Codnor as anti-fascists drown out the BNP’s festival of race hate”, UAF news report, 16 August 2009

Update:  See “Three charged over racial taunt at BNP rally”, Reuters, 17 August 2009

Swedish far right split over land sale to mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A councillor for the xenophobic Sweden Democrat party is facing expulsion from his party – after preparing to sell land to people who want to build a mosque on it. The Sweden Democrats often express hostility against Muslims and the Islamic religion, and some in the leadership have proposed a ban against the building of mosques in Sweden.

But their councillor Jan Hansveden explained to local paper Helsingborgs Dagblad that the land sale involves “a scary amount of money” – around 850,000 US dollars. And that as far as he is concerned, it is his business who he sells his property to. The councillor sits in Landskrona local government council, one of the far right party’s biggest success areas.

But SD party leader Jimmie Åkesson has slammed the councillor as “greedy” and said that if the deal goes ahead, he’s not welcome in the party any longer.

Swedish Radio, 1 August 2009