STOCKHOLM — Swedish police said officers
wounded three people Sunday in the eastern city of Norrkoping as demonstrators
protested plans by a far-right group to burn copies of the Quran.
اضافة اعلان
“Police fired several warning shots. Three people
appear to have been hit by ricochets and are currently being treated in
hospital”, police said in a statement.
The three who were injured were under arrest, police
said, adding that their condition was not known.
Sunday’s clashes in Norrkoping were the second there
in four days.
On the first occasion, the demonstrators had
protested against a rally by anti-immigration and anti-Islam group Hard Line,
led by the Danish-Swedish politician Rasmus Paludan, 40.
On Sunday, they rallied again in protest another
gathering, which in the end Paludan abandoned.
Four people were
arrested among the approximately 150 participants, as protester threw stones at
officers and cars were set on fire, police said.
According to health services quoted by local news
agency TT, 10 people were hospitalized with minor injuries following the
clashes and similar unrest in the neighboring town of Linkpping, where
far-right Hard Line also abandoned a demonstration.
Paludan, who intends to stand in Swedish legislative
elections in September but does not yet have the necessary number of signatures
to secure his candidature, is currently on a “tour” of Sweden.
He is visiting neighborhoods with large Muslim
populations where he wants to burn copies of the Quran.
A lawyer and YouTuber, he has previously been
convicted of racist insults.
In 2019, he burned a Quran wrapped in bacon and was
blocked for a month by Facebook after a post conflating immigration and crime.
On Saturday, one of his rallies was moved from a
district of Landskrona to an isolated car park in southern Malmo, the large
neighboring city, but a car tried to force the protective barriers.
The driver was arrested and Paludan then burned a
Quran.
Hard Line’s tour has sparked several clashes between
the police and counter-protesters across the Scandinavian country in recent
days. On Thursday and Friday, around 12 police officers were injured in the
clashes.
In the wake of the string of incidents, Iraq’s
foreign ministry said it had summoned the Swedish chargé d’affaires in Baghdad
Sunday.
It warned that the affair could have “serious
repercussions” on “relations between Sweden and Muslims in general, both Muslim
and Arab countries and Muslim communities in Europe”.
In November 2020, Paludan was arrested in France and
deported.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
