The Swedish Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, was set on fire before dawn on Thursday (July 20th) during a protest organized by supporters of the turbulent religious leader Moqtada Sadr, while Iraqi refugee activist Salwan Momika announced plans to burn a new copy of the Koran in Stockholm.
Smoke rose from the building of the Swedish embassy, ????the correspondent of Agence France-Presse (AFP) noted from the roof of another building in the district, where the Iraqi riot control forces deployed in large numbers then chased dozens of demonstrators who remained there.
Embassy staff are “safe,” the Swedish foreign ministry in Stockholm told AFP. “We are aware of the situation. Our embassy staff are safe and the ministry is in regular contact with them,” the ministry said in an email.
In Baghdad, several civil defense trucks were on the site to extinguish the fire, noted an AFP photographer. Using water cannons, security forces chased protesters with electric batons to drive them away from the Swedish embassy and force them to disperse, the AFP photographer said. Protesters responded with stone throwing.
During the night, some demonstrators near the Swedish embassy brandished copies of the Koran, others portraits of Mohamed Al-Sadr, influential Shiite religious cleric and father of Moqtada Sadr, noted an AFP correspondent.
“Urgent investigation”
The raid on the embassy in Baghdad comes as Swedish police cleared a mini-rally in Stockholm on Thursday: the organizer, an Iraqi refugee in Sweden named Salwan Momika, confirmed on his Facebook page that he planned to burn a copy of the Koran and the Iraqi flag outside the Iraqi embassy.
“We are mobilized today to denounce the fact of burning the Koran, which is only love and faith,” protester Hassan Ahmed told AFP in Baghdad. “We demand from the Swedish government and the Iraqi government to stop this type of initiative,” he said.
“We didn’t wait until morning, we entered at dawn, we burned down the Swedish embassy,” said another young protester, before chanting “Moqtada Moqtada Moqtada” after the influential religious leader. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the protester said that “children of the Sadrist movement” acted after Salwan Momika was again given permission to “protest to burn the Koran” in Sweden.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry on Thursday condemned “in the strongest terms” the fire at the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad, calling on security forces to open an “urgent investigation”, according to a statement. “The Iraqi government has instructed the relevant security services to carry out an urgent investigation and take all necessary measures to uncover the circumstances of the incident and identify the perpetrators to hold them accountable in accordance with the law,” the statement said.
Protests and diplomatic tensions
Salwan Momika, organizer of the event scheduled for Thursday, had already burned a few pages of a copy of the Koran on June 28 in front of the largest mosque in Stockholm during the day of Eid al-Adha, a holiday celebrated by Muslims around the world. This first incident prompted supporters of religious leader and politician Moqtada Sadr to storm the Swedish embassy in Baghdad on June 29. They went in and stayed there for about a quarter of an hour before coming out.
Salwan Momika’s gesture in Stockholm then provoked a volley of international condemnations. This type of act has already taken place in Sweden or in other European countries, sometimes at the initiative of far-right movements. They have led to demonstrations and diplomatic tensions in the past.
A follower of stunts, Moqtada Sadr, influential religious leader and troublemaker of Iraqi politics, has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to mobilize thousands of demonstrators in the streets of Iraq. In the summer of 2022, his supporters invaded parliament in Baghdad and set up a sit-in for several weeks. Their leader was then in the midst of a showdown with the opposing political camp over the appointment of a prime minister.
