Posted: Aug 29, 2020 2:05:51 pm
Protesters burn tires during a riot in the Rosengard neighborhood of Malmo, Sweden, on August 28, 2020 (TT News Agency via Reuters).
On Friday, violence broke out in the Swedish city of Malmo, where more than 300 people had gathered to protest anti-Islam activities. Several reports suggest that the protesters threw objects at the police and burned car tires.
How did the violence start in Sweden?
The protests began after members of the far-right Danish party Stram Kurs (Hard Line) burned a copy of the Koran in Malmo on Friday. Hours earlier, party leader Rasmus Paludan had been denied permission to hold a meeting in Malmo on “Islamization in the Nordic countries,” where the Koran was rumored to be burned, the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported. Paludan was invited by the Swedish artist and provocateur Dan Park, who had previously been convicted of inciting ethnic groups.
Who is Rasmus Paludan?
Paludan is a Danish politician and lawyer who founded the far-right party Stam Kurs in 2017 and was noted for making anti-Muslim videos on YouTube, the content of which included the burning of the Koran, sometimes wrapped in bacon, which he justified as a tribute to freedom of expression.
In June, Paludan was convicted on racism charges for posting anti-Islam videos on his party’s social media channels, as a result of which he was sentenced to three months in jail and banned from practicing law. In 2019, he was sentenced to 14 days of probation for making a racist speech. In June he was convicted of 14 counts, including racism, defamation and dangerous driving, and served a month in jail along with a two-month suspended sentence.
Paludan came close to entering parliament in the last Danish elections with a policy based on deporting more than 300,000 Muslims from Denmark and banning Islam.
On Friday, Paludan was banned from entering Sweden and imposed a two-year entry ban.
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Protesters throw stones at police during a riot in the Rosengard neighborhood of Malmo, Sweden, on August 28, 2020. (Photo via Reuters)
The situation of immigrants in Sweden
According to a report published by Brookings in March, Sweden has historically been a safe haven for refugees and, after Canada and Australia, it has received the most refugees per capita. Between 2013 and 2014, Sweden granted permanent residence permits to all Syrians in Sweden who applied for asylum, and since the beginning of the Syrian war, more than 70,000 Syrians have arrived in Sweden.
According to the report, in 2015 Sweden received a record 162,000 asylum applications mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and this influx of Muslim asylum seekers from war-torn countries has had a significant impact on Swedish politics.
The third largest party in the Swedish parliament, the right-wing Swedish Democrats with roots in neo-Nazism, has created the perception among people in recent years that the influx of predominantly Muslim immigrants has led to an increase in crime and since 2015 -2016. In the migration crisis, many Swedes see refugees as putting pressure on public finances in a country that has one of the most generous social assistance programs in the world.
A New York Times report reported that the large influx of immigrants to Sweden threatens the resistance of the country’s model that relies on its residents paying some of the highest taxes in the world and “understanding that everyone is supposed to work.” But a large number of immigrants, many of whom are not as skilled and educated, means that they will depend on welfare for years, something that Swedes are becoming increasingly wary of.
Significantly, in 2018, while the unemployment rate in Sweden was 3.8 percent, it was 15 percent among the foreign-born Swedish population. “Among supporters of the Swedish Democrats, these kinds of numbers are cited as evidence that refugees have come here to enjoy a life of state-funded laziness,” the report states.
Sweden’s support for right-wing parties is in line with sentiment in the rest of Europe, which in recent years has seen an increase in support for populist parties, including the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany and Vox. in Spain that have brought the ideas of national identity and immigration to the forefront.
Are protests like these common in Sweden?
In 2017, the Swedish police launched an investigation after riots broke out in a predominantly migrant area of Stockholm. The BBC reported at the time that rioters threw stones, set vehicles on fire and looted shops days after US President Donald Trump made a reference to Sweden in a speech on immigration issues. In 2010, rioters set fire to a school in the Swedish capital and threw stones at police in a predominantly immigrant suburb after a group of young people were denied entry to a school dance.
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