Image taken from a post by Dr. David Wood (@Acts17David on X).
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The government later pledged to explore legal means of abolishing protests that involve burning texts in certain circumstances.
Piloting the handle @Salwan_Momika1 on X, Salwan Momika was known for publicly burning the Quran2 or wiping his shoes with the Quran3, kicking it around or standing on the Quran as angry people watch from behind police barriers yelling at him, shouting obscenities and surely threatening him. The NY Timesreported that Salwan Momika,
set off protests around the Muslim world and in Sweden after he burned the Quran outside a mosque on one of the holiest days in Islam. He had expressed anti-Islam views and said he was trying to raise awareness about the mistreatment of Christian minorities by Islamists in some parts of the Muslim world.
Salwan Momika’s protest burning of the Quran in 2023 ignited outrage in many parts of the Muslim world.
Aftonbladet or The Afton Blade, a Swedish source that we will translate into English, reported in “Man shot in Södertälje” that a 40-something year old man had been shot in Södertälje, Sweden in an apartment according to Daniel Wikdahl, press spokesperson for the Stockholm police.
Södertälje, Sweden is indicated on this map by the red map pin.
Image from the NY Times, January 30, 2025, captioned, “Police officers in Sodertalje, south of Stockholm, on Thursday, following the shooting of Mr. Momika.Credit...Jonas Ekströmer/TT News Agency, via Reuters”
The man, who has not been named by police, was found with gunshot wounds and taken to hospital. The force announced he had died on Thursday morning.
The Aftonbladet or Afton Bladearticle also reported that the crime scene was secured and that a large operation was being conducted at the scene inside and outside the apartment, an investigation looking for clues stated the spokesman. He also indicated that they were receiving information from outside and that they would investigate it. Furthermore, they write,
One person has been taken in for questioning.
France 24reported that he had been shot dead. The NY Times would report that the Swedish Prosecution Authority stated that Salwan Momika had been killed and that
police said that they had arrested five people and that a murder investigation had been launched.
The Stockholm police, who declined to confirm that Mr. Momika had been killed, said that there had been a shooting late on Wednesday in Sodertalje, a city near Stockholm, and that a man had died. The prosecution authority then confirmed that Mr. Momika was that man.
The authorities did not say if the killing was connected to Mr. Momika’s burning of the Quran.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Sweden's security services were involved in the investigation because there was "obviously a risk that there were links to foreign powers," SVT reported.
France 24reports that the following day, prosecutors dropped the charges, the verdict for which he was set to hear in court that day. France 24reported that
Momika had said he had received a slew of death threats over his protests, which were livestreamed on his social media.
While Momika had police protection during his protests and when attending court, his lawyer Anna Roth told news agency TT that as far as she knew he was not protected while at home.
"He was well aware that there was an extensive threat to him. There was a price on his head," Roth said.
Image from the New York Times, January 30, 2025, captioned, “Salwan Momika protesting outside a mosque in Stockholm in 2023.Credit...Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images”
Many Muslims were angry with the Swedish authorities, who did not act to stop his protest. Although the authorities condemned Mr. Momika’s anti-Muslim actions, they said that Swedish free speech laws meant they had little power to intervene.
A permit obtained for Mr. Momika’s gathering, however, had said that demonstrators were not allowed to burn objects in Stockholm. Mr. Momika was charged with agitation against an ethnic or national group, said Rasmus Oman, the prosecutor assigned to the case.
In June 2023, the 38-year-old with a chequered past sparked outrage when he stomped on the Islamic holy book and wrapped it in bacon before lighting a few pages on fire, slamming it shut and kicking it like a football.
While holding the Koran, Momika professed that he wanted to alert Swedish society to "the danger of this book" at his June 2023 protest.
Additionally,
Momika, along with co-protester Salwan Najem, went on to stage several similar protests, in one instance outside Iraq's embassy in Stockholm -- although he refrained from burning it on that occasion.
The Swedish decision to let his demonstration go ahead prompted Iraq to expel Sweden's ambassador and revoke the license for telecom firm Ericsson to operate in the country.
On June 28, Momika stood in front of the Central Mosque in Stockholm shielded by a wall of Swedish police officers as his friend filmed him ripping pages from the Qur’an, burning them, and covering them with bacon.
“This is my country. I am keen to protect Sweden from this book, I am keen to protect Sweden from this book. This book is a threat to this country,” he shouted at worshipers exiting the mosque and toward his friend, who filmed him.
Momika announced that he intended to file a lawsuit against Iraqi Shiite cleric and political leader Muqtada Al-Sadr because he urged people to kill him after he burned a copy of the holy Qur’an.
The primary reason atheist Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika is dead is NOT that he burned the Quran.
The primary reason he's dead is that Western politicians, journalists, police, and educators constantly take the side of the people who wanted to murder him.
Salwan was a GENOCIDE SURVIVOR. His family in Iraq was murdered by ISIS for being Assyrian Christians.
He sought refuge in Sweden, but not only did Sweden fail to protect him, it actively tormented him with the threat of deportation to Iraq, where he faced an execution sentence.
Swedish political writer Jerry Maher says Momika’s motives appears to be asylum related, presenting himself as a victim
They also report that he
claims to be liberal, but he fought in the Imam Ali Brigades and praised firebrand cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr
In an earlier section we quoted what this source reported regarding his activism in Sweden in the Summer of 2023 wherein he abused a Quran in public as some angry people looked on while restrained by the Swedish authorities. We will restate here that they reported that his actions disrespecting the Quran in public lead to trouble or the government of Sweden diplomatically. They also write that he was the recipient of several death threats through personal communication and social media.
They also write,
As the story continues to unfold, Momika has called upon authorities to extend his refugee status and even grant him citizenship. Now, while there is no doubt the threats to his life are real, an Arab News investigation into his past has raised several questions about the authenticity of his motives and ideological claims.
Later, the article states,
“I call on every honorable person to step on this book,” he said.
However, not so long ago, the self-proclaimed “liberal” Momika stood dressed in militia attire pledging allegiance to one of the most notorious extreme religious groups in Iraq — the Imam Ali Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Movement of Iraq that operates under the terrorist-designated Popular Mobilization Units.
However, not so long ago, the self-proclaimed “liberal” Momika stood dressed in militia attire pledging allegiance to one of the most notorious extreme religious groups in Iraq — the Imam Ali Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Movement of Iraq that operates under the terrorist-designated Popular Mobilization Units.
Originally from Qaraqosh in northern Iraq’s Nineveh Plains, he was also a founder of the Syriac Democratic Union party and the Hawks Syriac Forces, an armed militia established in 2014 that was affiliated with the pseudo-Christian militia Babylon Brigades, which took up arms against Daesh as the latter attempted to take control of Iraq in its conquest to assert Shariah across the land.
Now he claims that Muslims are migrating away from their own countries because they are ruled by Shariah. “They flee that country to come here and want to apply their Shariah law. They come here seeking safety, peace, dignity and democracy, and then they say that they want to apply their Shariah law, as if they are the oppressed,” he said.
They go on to report about the lawsuit they say that Momika said he intended to file against Muqtada Al-Sadr, an Iraqi Islamic cleric because he called for the assassination of Salwan because of what he’s done with the Quran.
Before we go any further in their article, when we wrote this, the earliest post we could see from hm on X was from June 24, 2024 [archive here]. Could it be that Salwan Momika deleted some posts? At any rate, they continue,
However, a now-deleted tweet he published on his account on Dec. 2, 2021 shows that he praised and rallied support for the head of the Iraqi Sadrist movement, stating: “In support of the courageous commander Muqtada … neither eastern nor western … a national majority government … they will fight and break it up.”
Arab News contacted several experts in Iraq who all confirmed Momika’s past involvement with the group.
One wonders why these experts are not on record here in this report, because they are not, if indeed they exist as such.
These contradictions, as well as his background, have shed light on why he went on to publicly defame and burn the Qur’an.
“Momika came from a background strongly influenced by Christianity and joined the ranks of the militia to combat a common enemy, Daesh,” said Dr. Hani Nasira, a political and religious expert. “While he adhered to the Christian faith, he worked tirelessly to achieve his goal of attaining importance and relevance. He became an opportunist.”
A letter of condemnation issued by the Council of Christian Church-Leaders of Iraq. (Courtesy: Patriarch Mar Awa III via Facebook)
An Arab News investigation into Momika’s social media profiles and personas highlighted a sharp shift in the Iraqi refugee’s posts. His Facebook and Instagram feed was first dominated by criticism of the Iraqi government following the mass protests of 2019 up until six months ago, when he took an extremely anti-Islamic stance and consistently posted derogatory statements about the Prophet Muhammad and the Muslim faith.
Notice, by the way, how many sources - such as this one - fail to include citations or links as we do. They continue,
“When the circumstances aligned, he renounced his faith and became an atheist, going to great lengths to make his point and appeal to a niche group that shares his ideology, thus provoking the opposing party,” said Nasira.
“His transition from one extreme to another, even rejecting his own religion and becoming an atheist, was not enough. He failed miserably, so he further pushed his agenda, strategically choosing the right time and place. He utilized social media to gain fame and attention, exploiting Islamophobia to achieve his goals.”
The circumstances in question appear to be tied to Momika’s immigration and refugee status.
Within the same video, Momika uploaded a copy of his request to the Swedish police, notably censoring his address and ID number but keeping his personal email and phone number visible.
“Considering the potential consequences under Sweden’s new immigration laws, he chose this path to stir up trouble and receive numerous threats. This enables him to manipulate and abuse the system, providing evidence that his life is in danger, just as he claimed when leaving Iraq,” said Jerry Maher, a Swedish political writer and Middle East and Iran specialist.
Maher believes that Momika purposely exposed his identity to the public, revealing his phone number and email on his Facebook page for people to establish contact.
“These tactics are all part of his strategy to present himself to the Swedish authorities as a victim under threat and seek protection. As a former fighter who engaged in battles in Iraq, his asylum papers and residence permit are likely at risk. Recent changes in Swedish migration laws have become more stringent, resulting in several expulsions,” added Maher.
We would like to take this opportunity to remind our readers that by quoting source, we are not implying that the source is accurate or that we agree with the source. They then include the following image.
Before his 2018 move to Sweden, his social media accounts told a story of an erratic political career in Iraq.
It included links to a Christian armed faction during the fight against the Islamic State group, rivalries with influential Christian paramilitaries and a brief arrest.
He also joined the massive anti-corruption protests that gripped Iraq in late 2019, which were met with a crackdown by authorities that killed more than 600 people nationwide.
Diplomatic headache
Momika had originally planned to stage his Stockholm protest in February 2023, but police denied him a permit citing security concerns.
That ruling was overturned in court, clearing the way for his demonstration.
Speaking to newspaper Aftonbladet in April 2023, Momika stressed that his intention was not to cause Sweden any trouble.
"I don't want to harm this country that received me and preserved my dignity," he said.
His protests nevertheless caused a headache for the government.
His June protest drew condemnations from around the world, including from Turkey -- which at the time was blocking Sweden's NATO membership.
Iraqi protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad twice in July 2023, starting fires within the compound on the second occasion.
The Swedish government condemned the desecrations while noting the country's constitutionally protected freedom of speech and assembly laws.
Later in the article, France24 writes,
In March 2024, Momika left Sweden to seek asylum in Norway, telling AFP that Sweden's freedom of expression and protection of human rights was "a big lie".
Norway deported him back to Sweden only weeks later.
In the wake of his initial protests he expressed ambitions to enter politics.
He told newspaper Aftonbladet he hoped to one day run for a seat in parliament as a representative for the Sweden Democrats -- an anti-immigration party propping up Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson's coalition government.
At the time the Sweden Democrats said that Momika's actions did not represent the party.
Archives of Posts by Salwan
As this archive shows, the last activity from his account was a repost of the following post from January 18, 2025 [archive here] featuring a video of his gleeful burning of a Quran while restrained onlookers jeer.
He reposted the above a few times. One of his last posts was the following;
Today the trial has ended and I have faced the charges against me for criticizing Islam. The prosecutor is asking the court to extradite me to Iraq just because I criticized Islam and burned the Quran.
The post features video of Salwan being escorted into the court building.
The earliest post on his X timeline that I could access was the following from June 24, 2024, 8:52pm [archive here],
A lot of people think I come from a Muslim background and I'm Arab. No, my dear, I am Assyrian, not an Arab, from a Christian Catholic family, and my mother tongue is the Assyrian language, as Islam occupied my homeland, Mesopotamia, and it was named after Iraq and Syria.
I defend the West so that it is not occupied by Islam and Muslims, as happened to my country.
What’s waiting for you in hell is worse than murder.
Also, if you are a jew as your Profile suggests, stop playing victim (like you guys can’t help but do) and cut the hypocrisy because you believe in hellfire as well for disbelievers
Thousands of people across Europe and beyond are burning Qurans in solidarity with Salwan Momika. But to many outsiders, these mass burnings may seem like nothing more than provocation—an attempt to insult Muslims or stir controversy.
That could not be further from the truth.
Burning the Quran is not just about offending Islam. It is about reclaiming our fundamental rights—the right to free speech, the right to criticize an ideology, and the right to push back against those who demand submission.
Later in the report, we read,
Islam is not a religion that coexists—it is an ideology that demands submission through fear. The West has spent decades surrendering to those threats, criminalizing speech that offends Islam, and silencing those who resist.
Salwan Momika understood this. He didn’t burn Qurans to provoke—he burned them to expose the lies. He burned them to show that our so-called free societies are ruled by fear, not law.
Later, she writes,
Thousands are now burning Qurans not out of hatred but out of solidarity.
Also on January 31, 2025 Apostate Prophet posted this [archive here],
We apologize that we do not yet have the time to take screenshots of every post below.
February 1, 2025, YasMohammedxx posted this [archive here],
February 1, 2025, Alliance of Former Muslims posted this [archive here],
February 1, 2025, Apostate Prophet posted this [archive here],
February 1, 2025, @CatShoshanna posted this [archive here],
February 1, 2025, Dr. Maalouf posted this [archive here],
February 1, 2025, Dr. Maalouf posted this [archive here],
February 1, 2025, Dr. Maalouf posted this [archive here],
February 1, 2025, Dr. Maalouf posted this [archive here],
February 1, 2025, Queen Natalie posted this [archive here],
February 1, 2025, Apostate Prophet posted this [archive here],
February 1, 2025, Apostate Prophet posted this [archive here],
February 1, 2025, Apostate Prophet posted this [archive here],
February 1, 2025, @RealMaalouf posted this [archive here],
Christians who resist Islam are persecuted in the Middle East -- and now in Europe.
Salwan Momika, who was murdered on Wednesday 29th January in a Sharia-style execution in his own home, deserved better. His final days were consumed by anxious anticipation: he was set to be handed a verdict in his ongoing trial for ‘incitement to racial hatred’ in Sweden. His crime? Burning a Quran in protest against Islam in Stockholm in 2023. Momika was born a Syriac Catholic in Iraq who knew all too well the persecution faced by non-Muslims in the Middle East, having been subjected to years of persecution before and during the Iraqi Civil War. He was among the best-placed people in Europe to protest against the horrors of Islamic jihad. But in August 2023, the Swedish government responded to his protest with a criminal charge of ‘agitation against an ethnic group’, despite the glaring facts that Momika himself was ethnically Iraqi, Islam is not an ethnicity, and his ‘agitation’ against the scriptural basis of a terroristic regime – ISIS – was an act of resistance. After seeking asylum in Norway in 2024, having been persecuted by the Swedish regime, Momika was arrested and deported back to Sweden. The entire situation is worse than Kafkaesque.
There are few cases of asylum-seeking which strike me as more valid than that of Momika. But, while being hunted by Islamists for his outspoken apostasy, Momika was punished rather than protected by the same Western states which boast liberal asylum programs for the supposedly persecuted. Now he is dead, and the Swedish government are avoiding any sense of responsibility by invoking ‘foreign powers’ which may or may not have been officially involved in Momika’s death. Meanwhile, Sweden bears witness to historic highs in violent crime perpetrated by gangs, overwhelmingly consisting of the children of recent migrants, in its capital. Sweden’s detainment of Momika, like Norway’s swift arrest and deportation when he attempted to flee Sweden, reveal that there is the capacity to remove unwanted people from Western shores. The horrific irony is that there is no political will to deport the migrants who hold Western freedoms in contempt – instead, the ‘Islamophobes’ are targeted.
Momika’s activism follows decades of ethnic cleansing and anti-Christian persecution in the Middle East, where a once-rich Christian heritage has been razed to the ground and entire communities have been driven out of several regions. In Iraq, home of some of the oldest Christian churches in the world, Christians are ‘close to extinction’.1 in 7 Christians are persecuted worldwide as of 2024, compared to 1 in 8 in 2021; a century ago, 20% of people in the Middle East were Christian, compared to about 3% today, evidencing a long-term exodus from the region thanks to religious persecution. Western states, obsessed with countering ‘Islamophobia’ thanks to the default minority status of Muslims in Europe, have been unforgivably impotent in the face of this persecution. To call the situation in Gaza a ‘genocide’, despite steady population growth in the region, while failing to mention the actual genocides against Christians in Africa and the Middle East and ongoing exoduses from regions like Azerbaijan, is a central hypocrisy of Western progressivism. It starkly reveals that Western states are driven not by the brutal facts of present-day reality but by a neurotic loathing of their own historic relation to Christianity. Muslims who themselves have left their warring home nations for Western civilization are happy to weaponize misleading terms like ‘Islamophobia’. Meanwhile, there is no sanctuary for Middle Eastern Christians who speak out.
After Momika burned a Quran outside Stockholm Mosque on 28th June 2023, harming no-one, the inevitable happened: mass violent protests swept the Islamic world. And, thanks to recent demographic upheaval in Europe, violent protests were staged across Denmark for good measure. Islamist arsonists stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad; rallies proliferated in Pakistan; the Iranian militia Ashab al-Kahf called for its followers to target ‘every Swede’ with violence on the social network Telegram (which is crawling with terrorists, not that the anti-Musk media cares). That a symbolic act of opposition to a religious creed – which should not be immune to criticism in any world, but particularly not in the free West – promises the threat of murderous violence proves the very need for the freedom to criticise Islam. Following the riots in Denmark, the Danish government should have taken a hard look at its immigration policy; instead, it instituted blasphemy laws criminalizing the ‘inappropriate treatment’ of religious texts. Of course, such laws will never be used to prosecute those who desecrate Bibles: the bill is widely known in Denmark as the ‘Quran law’. This is, in effect, a legal implementation of Sharia by a Western state.
In the Anglophone world, which is characterized by wilful ignorance of the Islamic persecution of Christians and the creeping Da’wah of Muslim diasporas, the response has been equally predictable. Ilhan Omar issued the conventional statement that ‘Islamophobia is on the rise’. Days ago, a man in Manchester, UK was arrested for an inspired Quran-burning on suspicion of a ‘racially aggravated public order offence’; it is now a widespread error in Western legal systems to protect a world religion from criticism on the grounds that the majority of its followers are not white. Meanwhile, noted ethno-narcissist Bushra Shaikh, British-Pakistani commentator for Channel 4, implicitly justified the execution, writing ‘Some of you may disagree but the public desecration of any holy book should be viewed as a hate crime and the offender should face consequences’.
What such comments blatantly ignore is that there is no systematic violence when Bibles are desecrated or Christian prophets lampooned by journalists; there is no Christian equivalent to Charlie Hebdo. Every time a critic of Islam stages a public protest, the fallout – in this case, the vengeful murder of an Iraqi Christian asylum-seeker – proves the validity and courage of that very protest. It serves as a sharp reminder that the religion, and its surrounding culture, which poses a major global threat to the peace and safety of nonbelievers or believers of other faiths is not the Christianity of the Holy Bible or the Judaism of the Torah. It is the Islam of the Quran. ISIS, which displaced over 125,000 Iraqi Christians, does not justify its jihad with reference to any ‘holy book’. Take their word for it. Surah 9:5: ‘Then kill the disbelievers (non-Muslims) wherever you find them, capture them and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush’.
Do not forget the name of Salwan Momika. Like that of Theo van Gogh, his story is emblematic of Western compliance with the Islamic persecution of Christians and the Sharia-led norms being adopted by progressive language and laws. The grotesque, topsy-turvy order of priorities adopted by Western nations in response to asylum-seekers from the developing world led to his murder. Sweden is compliant is in its own destruction. In his own words:
‘Sweden and Norway have identified me as a threat to their security. Yes, I am a threat to the Islamization project of the West, which is being pursued by your leftist communist government that is deceiving the citizens and making the country Islamic. So I have come to awaken the people and thwart the Islamization project of the West, and I will not be afraid of you.’
We must not let his legacy die.
On February 5, 2025, Amy Mek posted this on X [archive here].
