SWEDEN: Salwan Momika, Iraqi Christian refugee, who enraged the Muslim world by burning Qurans in the street in 2023 has been shot dead by Muslims in Stockholm

He fled Iraq to escape the persecution of Christians there by Muslims, only to be assassinated by Muslims in Sweden. Momika was also a strong supporter of the state of Israel.

ChannelNewsAsia An Iraqi Christian refugee in Sweden who repeatedly burned the Quran in 2023, sparking outrage in Muslim countries, has been shot dead south of Stockholm, investigators said on Thursday (Jan 30).  Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told reporters at a press conference: “I can guarantee that the security services are deeply involved in this because there is obviously a risk that there is also a link to foreign power.”

A Stockholm court had been due to rule Thursday whether Momika, a Christian Iraqi, was guilty of inciting ethnic hatred but said it had postponed its ruling until Feb 3 as a result of his death.

Several media outlets reported that the shooting may have been broadcast live on social media. The Aftonbladet newspaper said the attacker was able to gain entry into the building through the roof.

In August, Momika and a fellow protester Salwan Najem were charged with “agitation against an ethnic group” on four occasions in the summer of 2023. According to the charge sheet, the two desecrated the Quran, including burning it, while making derogatory remarks about Muslims – on one occasion outside a Stockholm mosque. “I’m next on the list,” Najem wrote on X after Momika’s death, telling Swedish media that he had received death threats.

In August of that year, Sweden’s intelligence service Sapo raised its threat level to four on a scale of five after the Quran burnings had made the country a “prioritized target”. The Swedish government condemned the desecrations while noting the country’s constitutionally protected freedom of speech and assembly laws.

In October 2023, a Swedish court convicted another man of inciting ethnic hatred with a 2020 Quran burning, the first time the country’s court system had tried the charge for desecrating Islam’s holy book. Prosecutors have previously said that under Swedish law, the burning of a Quran can be seen as a critique of the book and the religion, and thus be protected under free speech. However, depending on the context and statements made at the time, it can also be considered “agitation against an ethnic group”.

In March 2024, Momika left Sweden to seek asylum in Norway, telling AFP that Sweden’s freedom of expression and protection of human rights was “a big lie”. Norway deported him back to Sweden several weeks later.

Relations between Sweden and several Middle Eastern countries were strained by the pair’s protests. The burning of Quran copies in Sweden and Denmark under the pretext of free speech has sparked a backlash in Muslim countries, including attacks on diplomatic missions. Following protests in the Muslim world, Denmark passed legislation in December making it illegal to burn copies of the Quran in public places.

In 2023, an al-Qaeda linked media outlet released video calling on Muslims in Sweden to “behead Quran burner, Salwan Momika” and to “massacre Swedish security forces.”

MEMRI On August 17, 2023, the Kata’ib Al-‘Iman Foundation released a six-minute video following several recent burnings and desecrations of the Quran in Sweden by Salwan Momika (below), a Sweden-based Iraqi Christian refugee. Titled “Who [will go forth to fight] against Salwan Momika, as He Harmed Allah and His Messenger?”, the video, in Arabic with English subtitles, calls on supporters to kill Momika and attack Swedish security forces.

The video opens by introducing Momika as a direct continuation of a long list of people and forces who have aimed to harm Islam and “extinguish the light of Allah.” To the background of photos and video excerpts of leaders and politicians accused of waging war on Islam, among them former U.S. President George W. Bush and former French President Francois Hollande, the narrator reads: “Times vary… Places vary… People vary… But all those have the same concern – destroying Islam and extinguishing the light of Allah Almighty.”

Referring to Momika personally, the narrator reads: “We and the Islamic nation have noticed the actions of the infidel taghout[Satan] Salwan Momika: burning the Quran, kicking it, treading it underfoot, and disrespecting it. During this period of 22 days… No one has shed his impure blood, until he repeated this action again, standing in front of dozens. No one has raised his head, and no one has held him accountable yet.”

The video continues: “Know, my Muslim brother, you who live in Sweden, that Salwan’s action was not the first and will not be the last, unless you put an end to it by killing him. Know also that the Swedish police’s blood is a fair game for attack, just like drinking water. So shed their blood, kill their soldiers, hit their economy wherever they are. Do not underestimate the importance of killing them and fighting them.”

“If Allah saves you from them after you kill him [Momika],” the narrator advises, “go to another place, preferably a police center, and inflict a massacre on them. Let your goal be martyrdom and the spread of horror in the hearts of the infidels and hypocrites. If Allah decrees for you captivity or martyrdom, consider the reward [in the hereafter]; and know that all you have done was supporting the religion of Allah.”

The next few seconds show a simulated image of Salwan Momika targeted by a rifle sight. Then, a hadith is presented, telling the story of the killing of Ka’b bin Al-Ashraf by a follower of the Prophet Muhammad for insulting Allah and his messenger, followed by a direct call to supporters: “Who is ready to kill Salwan Momika, who has really hurt Allah and his apostle [sic]?”

The final two minutes of the video present perpetrators of jihadi attacks in recent years, by name and photo. Among them are brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, who carried out the 2015 shooting at the offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, in retaliation for the paper’s publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad; Abdullakh Anzorov (‘Abdallah Al-Shishani), who killed his teacher in France in 2020 after he showed cartoons of Muhammad, and several other jihadis who carried out attacks in Denmark, the Netherlands, and the Indian Subcontinent.

Since the June 28 burning of the Quran in Stockholm, several jihadi organizations, including the Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda affiliates Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and Harakat Al-Shabab Al-Mujahideen (Al-Shabab), have released statements condemning the insults to Islam and calling for violent reprisal attacks.[2]The most recent such statement was released by Al-Qaeda’s central command.[3]