Iraq orders expulsion of Swedish ambassador. This decision comes in response to the “repeated incidents of desecration of the sacred Quran” with the permission of the Swedish government. The Swedish embassy in Baghdad was set on fire on Thursday.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Chia al-Soudani has “asked the Swedish ambassador in Baghdad to leave Iraqi territory,” his office announced in a statement, adding that the Iraqi charge d’affaires in Stockholm had been recalled. This decision follows the “repeated incidents of desecration of the sacred Quran” with the permission of the Swedish government, along with “insults to Islamic sanctuaries and the burning of the Iraqi flag,” according to the same source.
Meanwhile, the President of the Iraqi Media and Communications Authority, Ali Al-Mouayad, “has suspended the operating license of the Swedish company Ericsson in Iraqi territory,” according to a statement, justifying this decision by “the authorization given by the Swedish state to burn the Quran and the Iraqi flag.”
On Thursday, a man stomped on the Quran outside the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm, but decided not to burn it as he had announced, according to an AFP journalist. He was heckled by a crowd of a few dozen people, most of whom were hostile to his actions.
One of the organizers of the gathering in Stockholm, Salwan Momika, an Iraqi refugee in Sweden, had announced on Facebook that he intended to burn a copy of the Quran and an Iraqi flag. In protest, the Swedish embassy in Baghdad was set on fire early Thursday morning during a demonstration organized by supporters of religious leader Moqtada al-Sadr.
“What happened is totally unacceptable,” said Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström. On Thursday, participants in a security meeting chaired by the Prime Minister “condemned the embassy fire,” seeing it as a “security breach.” Referring to book burnings, the Iraqi government also denounced the “provocative acts” that constitute “an incitement to a culture of violence and hatred.”
