BAGHDAD/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Hundreds of protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in central Baghdad in the early hours of Thursday, scaling its walls and setting fire to protest against an expected burning of the Koran in Sweden.
The press office of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that all embassy staff in Baghdad are safe, condemned the attack and highlighted the need for Iraqi authorities to protect diplomatic missions. The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for more details.
Supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for the demonstration on Thursday to protest the burning of the Qur’an for the second time in Sweden in weeks, according to posts in a popular Telegram group that linked the influential cleric to other pro-Sadr media.
Al-Sadr, one of Iraq’s most powerful figures, sometimes leads the hundreds of thousands of followers he has called into the streets, including last summer when they occupied Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone and bloody clashes.
The Swedish police statement showed that the Swedish police agreed on Wednesday to a request to hold a public meeting outside the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm on Thursday. Police said two people are expected to participate in the permit.
The Swedish news agency TT reported that the two planned to burn the Koran and the Iraqi flag in a public session, among them a man who set fire to a Koran outside a mosque in Stockholm in June.
Swedish police rejected several requests earlier this year for protests that were set to include Quran burnings, citing security concerns. Courts have since overturned the police’s decisions, saying such actions are protected by the country’s far-reaching free speech laws.
A series of videos posted to the Telegram group, One Baghdad, showed people gathering around the Swedish embassy around 1 a.m. Thursday (2200 GMT Wednesday) shouting pro-Sadr slogans and storming the embassy compound about an hour later.
The demonstrators chanted, “Yes to the Koran.”
Videos later showed smoke billowing from a building in the embassy compound with protesters standing on its roof.
[1/5]Demonstrators clash with members of the security forces as they gather near the Swedish embassy in Baghdad hours after the embassy was stormed and set ablaze before an expected burning of a Quran in Stockholm, in Baghdad, Iraq July 20, 2023. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad
Quran protests
The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs also condemned the incident and said in a statement that the Iraqi government had instructed the security forces to conduct a prompt investigation, identify the perpetrators and hold them accountable.
By dawn on Thursday, security forces were deployed inside the embassy and smoke billowed from the building as firefighters put out stubborn embers, according to Reuters witnesses.
Most of the demonstrators withdrew, b
Later, Iraqi security forces charged a few dozen protesters still roaming outside the embassy in an attempt to remove them from the area. Earlier, the demonstrators threw stones and projectiles for a short time at the large number of security forces gathered.
Late last month, al-Sadr called for protests against Sweden and expelled the Swedish ambassador after the Koran was burned in Stockholm by an Iraqi man.
After the arson, the man was reported to the police for incitement against a racial or national group. In a newspaper interview, he described himself as an Iraqi refugee who seeks to ban the Koran, the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe is a revelation from God.
Two large demonstrations took place outside the Swedish embassy in Baghdad in the wake of the burning of the Qur’an, with demonstrators breaching the embassy premises on one occasion.
The governments of several Islamic countries, including Iraq, Turkey, the UAE, Jordan and Morocco, issued protests over the incident, with Iraq demanding that the man be extradited for trial in the country.
The United States also condemned it, but added that Sweden’s issuance of the permit supports freedom of expression and was not an endorsement of the action.
(Covering by Timur Azhari). Additional reporting by Anna Ringström, Johan Ahlander and Marie Mannes in Stockholm. Written by Timur Azhari. Editing by Tom Hogg and Lincoln Feast
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