Unrest broke out in southern Sweden late on Saturday despite police moving a rally by an anti-Islam far-right group, which was planning to burn a Qur’an among other things, to a new location as a preventive measure.
Scuffles and unrest were reported in the southern town of Landskrona after a demonstration scheduled there by the Danish right-wing party Stram Kurs party was moved to the nearby city of Malmö, 27 miles south.
Opponents of Stram Kurs numbering up to 100 mostly young people threw stones, set cars, tires and dustbins on fire, and put up a barrier fence that obstructed traffic, Swedish police said. The situation had calmed down in Landskrona by late Saturday but remains tense, police said, adding no injuries were reported.
Kim Hild, spokesperson for police in southern Sweden, had said earlier on Saturday that police would not revoke permission for the Landskrona demonstration, organised by the Stram Kurs party, because the free-speech threshold for doing that is very high in Sweden.
The right of the protesters “to demonstrate and speak out weighs enormously, heavily and it takes an incredible amount for this to be ignored”, Hild told Swedish news agency TT.
Since Thursday, clashes have been reported also in Stockholm and in the cities of Linköping and Norrköping – all locations where Stram Kurs either planned or had demonstrations.
On Friday evening, violent clashes between demonstrators and counter-protesters erupted in the central city of Örebro ahead of Stram Kurs’ plan to burn a Qur’an there, leaving 12 police officers injured and four police vehicles set on fire.
Video footage and photos from chaotic scenes in Örebro showed burning police cars and protesters throwing stones and other objects at police officers in riot gear.
At Saturday’s demonstration in a park in Malmö, Stram Kurs’ leader Rasmus Paludan addressed a few dozen people. A small number of counter-protesters threw stones at demonstrators and police were forced to use pepper spray to disperse them.
Paludan himself was reported to have been hit on his leg by a stone, Swedish media said. No serious injuries were reported, according to police.
Paludan, a Danish lawyer who also holds Swedish citizenship, set up Stram Kurs, or Hard Line, in 2017. It runs on an anti-immigration and anti-Islam agenda.