Anti-Iran protests in Sweden have spiked in recent times, and the Islamic Republic is being blamed for instigating a world backlash.
Swedish authorities have accused Iran of being accountable for textual content messages despatched to 1000’s of individuals calling for revenge over the burnings of Islam’s holy e-book.
Officers in Stockholm claimed that Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard carried out “an information breach” and managed to ship “some 15,000 textual content messages in Swedish” over the string of public burnings of the Quran, which sparked main protests in Sweden and past.
Senior prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist mentioned {that a} preliminary investigation by Sweden’s home safety company, SAPO, confirmed that “it was the Iranian state through the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC, that carried out an information breach at a Swedish firm that runs a serious SMS service”.
The Swedish firm concerned was not named. There was no quick remark from Iranian authorities on the allegations.
Up in flames
Ljungqvist recalled that in August 2023, Swedish media reported that numerous folks within the nation had acquired textual content messages in Swedish calling for revenge in opposition to individuals who had been burning the Quran.
He defined that the sender of the messages was “a gaggle calling itself the Anzu group”.
Swedish broadcaster SVT printed a photograph of a textual content message saying that “those that desecrated the Quran should have their work coated in ashes” and calling Swedes “demons”.
The protests had been held underneath the liberty of speech act, which is protected underneath the Swedish structure. The police permitted the rallies.
Nevertheless, the incidents left Sweden torn between its dedication to free speech and its respect for spiritual minorities, and several other folks had been detained because the protests continued to stir outrage from conservative Muslims worldwide.
In Could, SAPO accused Iran of utilizing established legal networks in Sweden as proxies to assault Israeli and Jewish targets within the Scandinavian nation.
Destabilisation and polarisation
In a separate assertion, SAPO’s operational supervisor Fredrik Hallström mentioned the textual content messages’ intent was to additionally “paint the picture of Sweden as an Islamophobic nation and create division in society.”
He accused “overseas powers” of searching for to “exploit vulnerabilities” and mentioned they had been “now performing an increasing number of aggressively, and this can be a improvement that’s more likely to escalate.” He didn’t identify any particular nation.
In the meantime, Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer advised Swedish information company TT “{that a} state actor, on this case Iran, in keeping with (SAPO’s) evaluation, is behind an motion that goals to destabilise Sweden or enhance polarisation in our nation is in fact very critical”.
Like many Western nations, Sweden doesn’t have any blasphemy legal guidelines, and there’s no legislation particularly prohibiting the burning or desecration of the Quran or different spiritual texts.
“For the reason that actors are performing for a overseas energy, on this case Iran, we make the evaluation that the situations for prosecution overseas or extradition to Sweden are missing for the individuals suspected of being behind the breach,” Ljungqvist mentioned.
Whereas the top of the preliminary investigation “doesn’t imply that the suspected hackers have been fully written off” the probe might but be reopened, he defined.