Leading imam condemns violence after police battle more than 300 on streets of the city. The disorderly phalanx of young men and teenagers, many wearing face masks and hooded tops, started to accelerate, excitement rising, as it neared the row of police vans blocking off the troubled district of Rosengård in Malmö. “We’re gonna fuck this system up because they want to let a man burn the Qur’an,” one of them yelled, as the group starts hurling jagged chunks of concrete paving towards the armoured riot police sheltering behind the vans. “And we’re gonna fuck the police.” More than 300 rioters threw stones at police and burned tyres in the southern Swedish city on Friday night after a video circulated of followers of the far-right Danish politician Rasmus Paludan burning a copy of the Qur’an near one of the city’s mosques. (…) Police in Malmö had vacillated for two weeks over whether to give Rasmus Paludan, the leader of Denmark’s extremist Hard Line party permission to hold an anti-Islamic protest. Permission was denied on Wednesday, Paludan was stopped in a car on Friday afternoon as he left the Öresund bridge, deported and banned from entering Sweden for two years. But this did not stop his supporters from filming themselves burning one copy of the Qur’an, and kicking another around Malmö’s main square like a football, for which three of them were arrested on suspicion of hate crimes. During the riot, Samir Muric, a prominent Malmö imam, paced up and down in the space between the police and the rioters, imploring the rioters to stop and accusing them of shaming their own religion
via guardian: Riots rock Malmö after far-right Swedish activists burn Qur’an
siehe auch: Malmö Koran riots: ‘I don’t think we will come back to normal’. A protestor holds a flare on Malmö’s Amiralsgatan street. Photo: TT
The violent riots in Malmö over night on Friday prompted by videos of far-right protesters burning the Koran divided Muslims in the city, but there are fears the incidents will only deepen tensions, writes Richard Orange.