Riots and serious clashes erupted in Sweden on Thursday on the sidelines of a rally by a far-right and anti-Islamic Danish group planning to burn Koran in several cities. On Sunday, police said three people were injured after apparently being hit by police bullets during a clash. The Danish-Swedish extremist Rasmus Paludan in 2017 founded the Danish far-right movement Stram Kurs, or Hard Line, a movement that trumpets a strong anti-immigration and anti-Islamic agenda. On Thursday and Friday, the party was broadcast live on a video of Paludan burning the Koran – the holy book of Islam – in various Swedish cities. Paludan is known for directing such burns. Protesters and protesters clashed in the central city of Orebro on Friday. On Saturday, clashes broke out in the southwestern city of Malm,, which Swedish police described as a “messy night” with many “riots in the form of fire and attacks on police”, as well as Molotov cocktails and stones. Vehicles, including a city bus, were set on fire. In a statement, police said their goal was to maintain the “constitutionally protected freedom of expression and assembly” of the licensed assembly and protesters. On Sunday, Paludan announced on social media that he would cancel demonstrations in Linköping and Norrköping – nearby towns in eastern Sweden. – because the police had shown that they were “incapable” of protecting themselves and Paluntan. On the same day, three people in Normoping were obviously hit by police spheres after authorities threw warning shots while trying to dissolve protesters who were angry about the last few days demonstrations, reported the Associated Press. “They appear to have been hit by a fitting,” police said in a statement, adding that the three were not seriously injured but were receiving medical treatment. In an interview with the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet on Sunday, Swedish Justice Minister Morgan Johansson told the rioters to “go home”. Johansson called Paludan a “right-wing extremist whose sole purpose is to drive violence and division,” but added that “Sweden is a democracy and in a democracy, fools also have freedom of speech.” In 2020, Paludan was sentenced to three months in prison on charges of racism and defamation. In 2019, his party was about to enter the Danish parliament. Although the Stram Kurs did not win a seat that year, Denmark mainly saw a general change in anti-immigration policies. In 2018, the nationalist and right-wing populist Swedish Democrats, a group of neo-Nazi descent, won about 18 percent of the vote in Sweden’s general election. Its impetus has been largely attributed by analysts to concerns about crime and immigration.
