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- cross-posted to:
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Summary
Salwan Momika, the Iraqi man who staged several Quran burnings in Sweden in 2023, was shot and killed in Sodertalje, near Stockholm.
His actions had sparked international outrage, riots, and diplomatic tensions. Swedish police confirmed a murder investigation is underway, and several arrests have been made.
Momika, who sought asylum in Sweden in 2018, faced charges of incitement to hatred, with a verdict scheduled for the day after his death.
His protests were permitted under free speech laws but led to legal action against him.
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He was being charged for doing this? I had completely missed that. Was Sweden always like this?
No, people haven’t been killed over a religious text for a very, very long time. Then we imported the religious issue.
He was a asshole, but he sound have been free and safe to be an asshole.
Fuck religion
I’m not for the death penalty or killing people generally (very rare exceptions, maybe).
That said, he did it to rile up millions of people with hate speech (for them it is I bet), so like don’t do that or you might face consequences.
Free speech isn’t about the right to hate speeching. What a douchebag.
Edit: idiot below trying to frame it I think you shouldn’t “blasphemy”. No lol go ahead and blasphemy all you want, that’s free speech IMO.
Blasting religion for it’s cruelty is always appreciated.
To bad he was a raging hypocrite who targeted Muslims due to himself being targeted as a Christian. Religion is gonna religion until they all stop believing the nonsense or everyone gets converted (alive or dead).
Being offended is not a justification for killing nor is it hate speech.
Where the hell do you see me saying killing is okay? I say literally the opposite.
Also, he did hate speech, he was on trial for it, read the article!
Are you one of the bigots trying to stir things up or what the hell is your agenda?
No agenda. Free speech absolutist. Criticism of a topic no matter how offensive must be allowed.
Publicly burning symbols of a minority group or a world view is an incitement to violence against that group or people holding that world view.
It has nothing to do with constructive criticism. It is symbolizing a violent act, with the goal to incite more violence.
It is more offensive to kill someone rather than destroying a book. Any group of people that kills over offense is a danger to their society and the world.
I don’t think we should consider blasphemy as hate speech. Or do you want to be required to follow the rules of all religions because they are all offended by it?
It wasn’t the blasphemy that was hate speech, it was the whole rhing riling them up ffs.
raised anger and criticism in several Muslim nations
I don’t think there are many non-Muslims who were onboard with this stupid shit either, to be fair. Besides the spittle-flecked gammon who were already bigots to begin with, of course.
The only Quran burning I’d support would be if Elon Musk did it as part of his whole white identitarian shtick. I’d send ISIS the airfare myself.
I have mixed thoughts on it really, like you should be allowed to do it but its just pointless and stupid so why the fuck would you?
To me, it’s more about the goal he was trying to achieve. He clearly did it to taunt and insult. In that context, I can see how this should be a punishable offense (not death though).
It would be a similar thing if you had learned that the prime minister of Sweden likes to create art at home. Then buying one of his art pieces and burn it in front of his house. Sure, burning art is not a punishable offense, but the goal of intimidating someone with such a symbol could/should be.
Its doing so outside of their house that could be intimidation at that point though. So if you burnt the art in your own home surely it would be fine? Essentially the burning isn’t the problem.
A more reasonable response is Muslims call the guy a cunt and move on.
I agree on the “reasonable response” aspect.
I think for the first question it should revolve around “public” or “private”. if you do something at home and record it to share the video on the internet, it is still public, with the goal to be public.
So in regards to incitement or hate speech it is also different if your racist uncle spurts his ideas at the family reunion, or if he broadcasts them on twitter.
I wasn’t so much thinking of public/private, but doing it outside someones house has a bit of an “I know where you live” vibe to it.
Fuck it, now I kind of want to burn a Quran or Bible for funsies.
Isn’t that basically like burning newspaper? Both would work I guess
why not both?
Toss in a torah to complete the Abrahamic trifecta and top it with dianetics because fuck scientology in particular.
the man wanted to incite hatred, show him middlefinger by doing the opposite
How do we know he wanted that?
I see the post that says he was being charged with inciting hatred, but also says his act was protected under free speech.
I think it’s dumb to be burning books as the only people who are going to be pissed are the fundamentalists and they’re always pissed off anyway, but I respect his right to free expression.
so, momika has been in sweden a few years. he converted to christianity in his home country, started shouting loudly about freedom of speech there, got told to stop, then filed for asylum in sweden. once here he kept doing the same thing, which of course jeopardises his asylum claim. only he wasn’t first. rasmus paludan has been burning qurans here for a while, always doing it in neighbourhoods with a majority muslim population. as a demonstration of the problem with religion, it’s effective. once. but both of them did it for years, and the things they have been saying during their book burning made it clear that it was not actually about freedom of speech, but about hatred of muslims. not islam, muslims. and they were both in court for the crime of hets mot folkgrupp (“incitement of hatred against a population group”). they clearly overstepped the law of the country they were in.
What other possible reason would someone have to burn a book that is to some more important than their life. Either people dont care about it or become enraged. And just because you have right to do something doesnt mean you should. His actions have caused a lot of harm, also most likely his own death too.
For argument’s sake, lets assume he had some positive reason for his actions. Has there been a single positive thing that has come from this? If you want to do good you need to think the consequences through and if you dont then you shouldnt do anything at all.
This is such a bullshit take with some not so subtle apoligism and blame shifting.
If burning a book causes a lot of harm in any way besides burn damage, the burner is hardly to blame but something else is fundamentally wrong, and he tried to make that very obvious to everyone with his own life at risk.
You know that the Nazis in Germany burned a lot of books?
Your general statement would absolve them from their actions and intentions and instead shifts the blame onto the people who got persecuted by having their books burnt. Which later escalated to more than “just” burning books.
You cannot reduce it to the action itself and ignore all the context around it, especially not the intentions of the perpetrators.
And “other people shouldn’t get offended if i insult and attack them constantly” is hardly acceptable in any other social context. E.g. i hope you would oppose insulting LGBTQ, Women, Ethnic minorities, disabled people…
And it should be obvious from these examples, that “it is just a joke” or “it is just an insult and i should be allowed to insult, because muuh free speech” is not a sincere argument, by the people spreading the hate. And their intention is never to keep the hate at verbal abuse, but to escalate it to physical violence.
Its not about the PHYSICAL book. Go ask any muslim if there is ANY situation where they would find it acceptable to burn their holy book in such way that guy did. And if he did it to “make it obvious there is something fundamendally wrong” why didnt he then MAKE IT OBVIOUS WHAT IS WRONG? Lets say that was his goal, then he failed so spectacularly words fail me.
I truly dont know what else to say about this if you still dont see what I mean.
And its not nice trying to frame what I said as apoligism or blame shifting. But if you TRULY think so then maybe you should back your arguments with facts instead of throwing words and hoping they stick. I know I can make mistakes and how else can I learn from them than if other people correct me. But i’m pretty sure i’m not wrong about this, but its not good to be blinded by your own surety.
He did it to incite hate. No sane person care about the paper.
I guess if you burn the american flag in Texas, screaming and complaining loudly about"freedom of speech", people will get annoyed, but 20 years ago it was illegal to do so.
So how long have you sided with the Nazis and fundamentalist Christians?
Because now you’re excusing their book burning.
What a take.
You see the difference of an individual burning a book that he owns and leaving your books alone and the state burning all the books and forbidding you from accessing them… right?
momika did it specifically to spark outrage among immigrants. don’t do that.
Nah fuck that, If muslims cant handle it they should look the other way like they do when women are stoned to death for showing their hair.
Thanks for generalizing 1.5bn people, Ben Affleck
Oh, so not a small minority. Good to have that cleared up. Show me a liberal, free muslim country, then i can show you all of them that are not.
I don’t understand the point of your comment.
No, i guess that would be too much to ask.
Wasn’t that Sam Harris who was being islamophobic and Affleck was defending them?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zsecVLjabzY
Just a stupid joke and I mixed up Ben Affleck with Ethan Hawke
Thanks, while we’re at it let’s burn some books by Jewish authors too.
See what I did there? Burning books is never a good look on you.
There’s burning all the copies of a book from the local library so no one has a chance to read them, and there’s burning one copy of a book which as an estimated 100 million copies printed per year as a protest.
To some the Quran is as hateful as Mein Kampf, and you know what people say about tolerance of intolerance. You may not agree, and you may think books should never be burned. I am on the fence on that. But I do know people who burn books shouldn’t be assassinated. And people shouldn’t live in fear of reprisals for speaking out against any religion and its teachings.
To some the Quran is as hateful as _Mein Kampf
I am atheist/agnostic but it is downright offensive to compare any major religious work from a major world religion (let’s arbitrarily define that as more than 1 billion followers I don’t intend this as a category of judgement just size) to that shitbook from a genocidal maniac.
The Bible, the Quran, Hindu texts like the Vegas or Upanishads… to say I know more than a passing knowledge about these works would be a lie but I know enough to understand there is real good in those books mixed up with problematic aspects, subject to a constant conversation and study by practicioners that attempts to reconcile and interpret the best parts of those things into a way forward.
Even if you are a staunch atheist there is real meat on the bone in the religious texts I listed above to read critically and consider.
Mein Kampf is just hateful trash, it isn’t worth reading, just go read The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (Woods translation) or listen to the superb audio book, it came out of Germany at basically the same moment and it is vastly superior in every respect as a work of intellectual and political introspection and it is actually fun.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Mountain
https://campuspress.yale.edu/modernismlab/the-magic-mountain/
I haven’t read the Quran or Mein Kampf, but even the old testament is plenty hateful.
Your kid makes fun of some bald dude? Death penalty, mauled by bear.
Add to that (I’ve heard second hand, correct me if I’m wrong) that there is some pedofilia/child marriage in the Quran, so I see how someone could have strong feelings about it.
The amount of people liking a book shouldn’t be an argument to judge its hatrfulness.
Yeah I have read both the Quran and some exempts from Mein Kampf. Cannot recommend the latter.
My favorite part from Mein Kampf was the one about the fox, the goose and the tiger who are all assumed to be hostile towards each other. Because of this „Arians“ shouldn’t mingle with Jews. If you’re troubled with following the soundness of the argument that’s because there is none.
Let’s ignore for a second that it’s just outright offensive to compare the books of any world religion to Mein Kampf. Even if you don’t believe in the whole God thing, then the Quran would still be a brilliant collection of verses spoken by some illiterate orphan without any education somewhere in the Arabian desert. And I can tell you that because I‘m a native speaker and even the hardcore atheist Arabs agree with me on that.
I think no one should be assassinated and capital punishment shouldn’t exist. And believe me when I tell you that I want freedom of speech. But there’s freedom of speech and hate speech. I don’t want freedom of hate speech and I don’t care who it is targeting.
I still don’t think anyone deserves capital punishment for anything, but to use this to generalize against all Muslims and our religious books is rightfully being called out as what it is, Islamophobia. Say the exact same things you said just about burning the Torah and we wouldn’t even have to argue about that being antisemitic.
not sure what you think the bible is
Basically fanfic commissioned by King James VI/I
Your point being?
THEY CAN’T KILL US ALL
THEY CAN’T KILL US ALL
You’d be surprised how efficient and streamlined capital punishment is in the middle east. So they probably can. (Unless you’re talking about outside the ME, then i doubt it)
Obviously I am not talking about the ME.
Then sorry. I thought so due to him being Iraqi, concern of him being deported and executed, and his reason for burning the Qur’ans originally.
Are you saying his killing was justified?
No? He’s saying it triggers plenty of Islamophobia. If you actually follow the logic, it sounds more like he’s adding more arguments against this kind of killing.
Yeah tbh as a Muslim it’s pretty tiring and offensive to read all of that shit when most of us are just busy living our lives like everyone else. And we’re here on the supposedly progressive and liberal Lemmy…
Wait, are you suggesting that its a bad idea to generalize what a billion plus people living in vastly different places and situations believe? /s
