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.

  • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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    4 hours ago

    For some context, when one scratches a bit the back-story of this guy, some interesting facts pop up:

    Momika came from Qaraqosh, a town in the Al-Hamdaniya district in the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh[5]. He was an ethnic Assyrian and raised as a Syriac Catholic.[6][7] During the Iraqi civil war, when Christians became persecuted by the Islamic State of Iraq (the precursor of ISIS), Momika joined the Assyrian Patriotic Party and worked as a security guard for the party’s headquarters in Mosul. According to Iraqi government sources, Momika fled his hometown in 2012 after the local court found him guilty of causing a wrongful death during a car accident and sentenced him to three years of imprisonment in Badush.[8][9]

    After the fall of Mosul to ISIS militants in June 2014, Momika joined the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) to fight against ISIS.[10] Specifically, he has appeared in videos in military uniform, as a part of the Christian unit “Spirit of God Jesus Son of Mary Battalion” (Kataib Rouh Allah Issa Ibn Miriam) brandishing firearms and pledging allegiance to the Imam Ali Brigades (to which the Christian unit is a part of), which are a PMF faction and part of the Islamic Movement of Iraq.[11] The Imam Ali Brigades are known to have close connections to Iran and is considered to be an Iranian proxy.[12] The brigades were also accused of committing war crimes and engaging in sectarian violence.[13] It’s said that Momika was also affiliated with the Syriac Assembly Movement, a political party that received support from the Government of the Kurdistan Region.[14]

    Momika also founded the Syriac Democratic Union and the Falcons of the Syriac Forces in 2014, an armed militia which was affiliated with the Christian militia Babylon Brigade, the armed wing of the Babylon Movement.[12] In 2017, Momika was involved in an internal power struggle with fellow Babylon Movement leader Rayan al-Kildani, which he lost. He fled the country as a result.[15]

    In 2017, Momika fled to Germany with a Schengen visa, where he announced his atheism and apostasy from Christianity.

    The rest of the article also describes multiple instances of him behaving erratically (e.g. threatening someone with a knife etc).

    So before we go to the standard «western right wing troll» stereotyping, we must acknowledge that this is a veteran of the fight against ISIS who experienced persecution of his community during the Iraqi civil war and who probably was suffering from all sorts of trauma.

    Does this excuse his behaviour, no. But it does explain it, way better than simplistic caricatures putting him in some «western racist» pigeonhole. He definitely did not deserve to die and he probably had some very legitimate reasons to hate Islam, a religion that he personally experienced in a really fucked up and extreme form in an extremely fucked up and extreme situation. Sadness all around.

    • BigAssFan@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Quite a lose-lose situation indeed. People who hate each others guts. I hope they can find the perpetrators soon.

  • MetalMachine@feddit.nl
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    4 hours ago

    This isn’t justification for what happened but people should know he was a part of a brigade in Iraq that killed people.

    Oh and also, he’s an Israeli supporter who called Palestinians “rats”

    • alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 hours ago

      As I understand, he was part of a brigade that killed people in the context of a civil war where his brigade was fighting against ISIS

      Quite an important footnote.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        As I understand, he was part of a brigade that killed unarmed civillians in the context of a civil war where his brigade was fighting against ISIS

  • Miaou@jlai.lu
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    11 hours ago

    He was being charged for doing this? I had completely missed that. Was Sweden always like this?

    • teslasaur@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      No, people haven’t been killed over a religious text for a very, very long time. Then we imported the religious issue.

      • shamblamblam@aggregatet.org
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        9 hours ago

        Then we imported the religious issue.

        Wouldn’t it make sense for Swedes to go after the people who try to kill someone for burning a book instead of making book burning illegal?

        Are they really that weak and spineless?

        • teslasaur@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          Chill there baby.

          There is a murder investigation. So yes they are. Unless you’re one of the troglodytes that wants to grab a pitchfork; i much prefer to let the police do their job.

          Just because your American police is a joke, doesn’t mean ours is.

          You can burn as many books as you want, thats not why salwan was under investigation.

          • shamblamblam@aggregatet.org
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            9 hours ago

            Just because your American police is a joke, doesn’t mean ours is.

            I have literally zero fear of burning any book in the US.

            Unlike in france and sweden…

            I’m also referring to the apparent laws Sweden has against book burning.

            • teslasaur@lemmy.world
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              9 hours ago

              There are no such laws. you bought it, you burn it.

              There are laws about religious, racial or ethnical discrimination though.

                • teslasaur@lemmy.world
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                  8 hours ago

                  Because you can try someone for a crime if the prosecutor finds a reason to do so.

                  I don’t pretend to know exactly what his indigtment was, but i recon i could ask for the papers since its public. What I do know is that he had to ask permission from the police to have his demonstrations and all except one was granted. The one that wasn’t allowed was because of the security issue due to muslim protestors. Don’t remember exactly how many allowed demonstrations there was. So i guess the answer is, people don’t know what they are talking about when they say what he was doing was “illegal”.

    • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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      9 hours ago

      If this was a Swedish-born guy, I would jump on the bandwagon of calling him an asshole.

      But this guy was an Iraqi. I cannot outright condemn someone who gets so tired of the shit of the majority of their own country that ends up overreacting the moment they find themselves somewhere where they can express themselves freely.

      Like, turban knocking in a Western city is (rightly) a hate crime. Turban knocking in Tehran? That’s fucking righteous.

      Middle eastern Christians, atheists, etc very often end up being “wrong” wherever they find themselves. Wrong in their home countries for being the kuffar Other, wrong in the West as “islamophobes” when they speak out about their othering.

    • Valmond@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      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.

        • Valmond@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          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?

      • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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        13 hours ago

        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?

        • Valmond@lemmy.world
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          12 hours ago

          It wasn’t the blasphemy that was hate speech, it was the whole rhing riling them up ffs.

      • teslasaur@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        Blasting religion for its cruelty is always appreciated.

        Too 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).

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      7 hours ago

      Freedom from religious persecution?

      He got the exact opposite of what he wanted you daft idiot

      • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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        6 hours ago

        In what way was he being religiously persecuted in Sweden before burning Korans? If you don’t think he intended provocation with such stunts, then you might be the draft idiot here. Again: justified? No. Predictable? Yes.

    • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      He died for destroying a book, for burning paper, no human was hurt and he died because some religious extremist can’t control themselves.

      Great example of how religion needs to be properly regulated.

      • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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        6 hours ago

        He was absolutely trying to get a reaction. I’m not saying that it’s good that he got the one he did, I’m just saying it was predictable.

        • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          You knew what you were saying and how you were saying it.

          We’re past the point where the avg person is ignorant to dog whistles.

  • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Liberals really hate Nazis.

    Unless the Nazi is being Nazi against Muslims instead of Jews. Then they love free speech.

    As the saying goes, the only good Nazi

      • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        Burning religious books is Nazi behavior. Nazis burnt plenty of religious books. What is next KKK rallies being protests?

        • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 hours ago

          Nazis also drank water and breathed air

          Guess you’re a Nazi if you do those things

          The reason something is done is important

        • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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          4 hours ago

          There is a difference between book burning as censorship and book burning as protest

          Notably the scale and ability to acquire the book afterwards

          • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            Indeed. This person burned books to incite hate. Like the Nazis.

            Can a person also commit Elon salutes in public because “they do not hurt anyone”?

            • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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              1 hour ago

              Indeed. This person burned books to incite hate.

              We can’t say that because we didn’t get the verdict

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      7 hours ago

      So wanting freedom from religious persecution is the same as being a Nazi now?

      Interesting, I did not know that

      • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        He was free from religious persecution. Turns out he was the person who was doing the religious persecution and wanted to keep doing it.

        • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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          4 hours ago

          How exactly was an Iraqi immigrant in Sweden persecuting anyone? Are we using the word persecution to mean whatever the fuck we like now?

          • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            He was inciting hate against a population and advocating for their persecution. How severely disconnected and racist are people to not even see this obvious link?

            • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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              2 hours ago

              Is that what he was doing? Or was he protesting what in his own lived experience as a veteran of the war against ISIS was a religion that led to the persecution of his own people (Iraqi Christians)?

              This is not an easy case, there are many intersecting threads and it defies easy hot takes.

              • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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                1 hour ago

                To find out whether it is a difficult topic, change out the ethnic group being discriminated against.

                Lets say a Palestinian flees to Sweden, starts waving around Swastikas and burning Torahs. How do we feel now?

                If a black person shoots someone they do not get to join the KKK either.

                Just because this person was persecuted by a fringe extremist group, created from the US overthrowing a country, which the overwhelming majority of Muslims denounce, does not give him the right to start misrepresenting and discriminating an entire group.

                • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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                  1 hour ago

                  “Get to”? “The right to”? What do you think I’m talking about? Oppression credits that can be used to buy a pass for shitty behaviour?

                  I’m asking for humanity and empathy, in the case of a guy who got fucking shot, by trying to make the case that this isn’t some cut and dry of some fascist getting their due, but a complicated and sad story.

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        Toss in a torah to complete the Abrahamic trifecta and top it with dianetics because fuck scientology in particular.

    • reksas@sopuli.xyz
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      1 day ago

      the man wanted to incite hatred, show him middlefinger by doing the opposite

      • shamblamblam@aggregatet.org
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        9 hours ago

        The fuck? He should be allowed to burn whatever book he wants in protest, regardless of who it pisses off.

        If anything, the only concern the state should have over this is for the environment.

        • reksas@sopuli.xyz
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          5 hours ago

          Just because you are allowed to do something doesnt mean you should.

      • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 day ago

        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.

        • shamblamblam@aggregatet.org
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          9 hours ago

          I think it’s smart to be burning books as an act of protest.

          People need to be able to exercise their rights, or else their rights will be taken away.

        • lime!@feddit.nu
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          1 day ago

          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.

        • reksas@sopuli.xyz
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          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.

          • 0x0@infosec.pub
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            1 day ago

            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.

            • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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              5 hours ago

              It’s not just paper. It’s a symbol. If you can’t understand that then there’s no hope for you in this world. You have a fundamentally flawed view of humanity if you can’t see humans ascribe meaning to object, religious or not. It’s the same reason burning a flag gets people upset.

              You can argue it’s irrational, because it obviously is, but humans are not rational creatures.

              Now, go only do objective rational things somewhere else. You’re words aren’t worth anything. You’re wasting your effort writing them.

            • reksas@sopuli.xyz
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              12 hours ago

              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.

            • Valmond@lemmy.world
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              13 hours ago

              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.

            • liyunxiao@sh.itjust.works
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              24 hours ago

              So how long have you sided with the Nazis and fundamentalist Christians?

              Because now you’re excusing their book burning.

              • Tja@programming.dev
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                14 hours ago

                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?

                • liyunxiao@sh.itjust.works
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                  9 hours ago

                  …what does the state have to do with it? Fundamentalist Christians in the US burned books without state power. Nazis regularly encourage book burning and they haven’t had state power in a few decades.

                  This Nazi, for instance, did not have state power behind him. Just a group of sycophants encouraging his antics.

                  If you’re on the side of a book burning Nazi nut job, you’re the bad guy.

                • liyunxiao@sh.itjust.works
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                  23 hours ago

                  Yes, it’s so much better when one group of bigots burn books than a larger group of bigots burn more books.

                  I guess this is the lesser evil you guys keep voting for, just a little book burning and hate speech, as a compromise.

                  Just a pro tip, if you are ever on the side of people burning books, you’re in the wrong.

    • lime!@feddit.nu
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      1 day ago

      momika did it specifically to spark outrage among immigrants. don’t do that.

      • shamblamblam@aggregatet.org
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        9 hours ago

        Congrats, you just let the terrorists win.

        Now people aren’t allowed to do things that upset them 🤷

        • lime!@feddit.nu
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          9 hours ago

          he wasn’t allowed to before either. we have laws against that.

      • Plastic_Ramses@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        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.

        • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
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          4 hours ago

          Good one. Throw in another joke in about Jews owning all the banks, newspapers and an elite pedo sex ring cabal. Haha. Aren’t these racist jokes funny?

          • shamblamblam@aggregatet.org
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            9 hours ago

            Idk man, you’d have a point if Iran didn’t systematically execute teenage girls for not wearing a headdress…

          • teslasaur@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            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.

            • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
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              5 hours ago

              Iran… Oh wait destroyed and overthrown by Liberals in 1953

              Show me a Muslim country which has not been invaded, colonized and destroyed by Liberals first.

              • Rinox@feddit.it
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                Arabia went from being under Ottoman rule to being under the house of Al Saud, it’s never been colonized by a western “liberal” country.

                Their rules are still insane.

                • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
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                  2 hours ago

                  Where do they get all those weapons from to surpress their population?

                  Let me pull up the map of American military bases in the middle ea… Wow that is a lot of American military bases in Saudi. Must be a coincidence.

              • teslasaur@lemmy.world
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                4 hours ago

                Below is the working list of nations that still criminalize consensual same-sex sexual acts between adults

                • Algeria
                • Afghanistan
                • Bangladesh
                • Brunei
                • Egypt
                • Eritrea
                • Marocco
                • Libya
                • Lebanon
                • Palestine
                • Iran
                • Iraq
                • Tunisia
                • Oman
                • Saudi arabia
                • Pakistan
                • Mauretania
                • Mali

                And on and on we go.

                The only countries that comes close to being reasonably secular are Malaysia and Turkey.

                • shaserlark@sh.itjust.works
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                  The question was

                  Show me a Muslim country which has not been invaded, colonized and destroyed by Liberals first.

                  And literally the first two countries already have been invaded, colonized and destroyed by liberals. And let’s move on, Bangladesh, Egypt, Eritrea, Marocco, Libya, Libanon, Palestine, Iraq, Tunisia, Pakistan, Mauretania, Mali, all former colonies, brutally ransacked, exploited, people enslaved, the very core of each of their societies absolutely destroyed. Make the list longer and the list of ex-colonies gets longer. Ah and then except of course the already mentioned Palestine, which is still an apartheid colony where the liberal west is committing genocide.

                  You talk about queer rights but you don’t give a single fuck about the fates of the hundreds of millions, if not billions that have been brutalized in the most horrifying ways by the “civilized west“.

                  Please do us a favor and GTFO with your phony concern for human rights. You just want to shit on brown people. I honestly feel sorry for you, you must be really unhappy carrying around so much hatred with you.

                • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
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                  Cool list. That is a lot of countries colonized and destroyed by liberals indeed.

                  Below is a list of countries currently committing or complicit in genocide:

                  • America

                  • Germany

                  • UK

                  • Israel

                  • Netherlands

                  • France

                  • Canada

                  • The entire rest of the liberal world

      • Shezzagrad@lemmy.ml
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        Because that’s be antisemetic and how dare you to anything against the Jewish people, don’t you know European persecuted them so the entire world now can’t anything to them due to white guilt

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      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.

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        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.

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          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/

          https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2022/12/13/thomas-mann-franklin-freeman-revisited-244293

          • Tja@programming.dev
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            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.

            • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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              I am an atheist/agnostic, I won’t be caught dead saying these books aren’t deeply problematic, that wasn’t my point, my point is that despite all that there is also some good to these books and exploration however fraught of morals and philosophy.

              Mein Kampf is just pathetic, lame trash and as I said before it is an insult to those religious works to compare them with a document solely designed to rationalize genocide and hate.

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          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.

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        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)

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            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.

    • Khuda@lemmy.world
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      look i hate netanyahoo and his party but i don’t think this iraqi guy deserved it, i belive in freedom of religion and expression

      and i think based on my experience (due to coming from sunni family) islam is something more than a religion

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        His schtick was grifting and being as racist as possible against brown people. This blatant racism is unacceptable in any way. We do not see Muslims mass burning Torah’s because they hate Israel either nor should they be doing that.

        This is straight up Nazi rhetoric. but because it is against Islam it is accepted in most Western countries. Even part of the more liberal establishment will defend it.

        This man will be slightly more missed than the United Healthcare CEO.

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          His schtick was grifting and being as racist as possible against brown people.

          Fucking what? He WAS “brown” aswell. He was a Christian from Iraq, ostracized for being Christian, by Muslims. I would have been all for him burning all of the religious texts in protest, but alas, he was one of them.

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            He was the leader of a Christian militia group too, supplied by Iran. You are leaving quite a few details out. I’d compare him to the Phalange in Lebanon who committed Sabra and Shatilla.

            Waving the flag of the white Apartheid can imply little else than racism. If anything he should be burning American and Israeli flags for destroying his country.

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          I dont know, the Swedish police’s slowness to charge Paludan and Momika with hate speech doesn’t really justify some random vigilante (or Turkish spy) going and giving him the death penalty. Kinda outside the paradox of tolerance here.

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          Is this accepted in most Western countries? It might he legal in the USA but most would think ypu are a weird asshole for burning a holy book.

      • x00z@lemmy.world
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        Hate speech is an exception to the freedom of speech in Sweden. (Same as in EU countries).

        You are allowed to practice your religion and express yourself, but hate speech is off the table.

        So if he was not jailed or fined for these book burnings, the law has failed and somebody could have taken matters in their own hands.

        • Iceblade@lemmy.world
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          This is, as a matter of fact, incorrect. There is only one law regarding what in english might be called “hate speech”. It refers to “agitation against a population group”, and is the only exception to freedom of expression relevant in this context, mentioned in “brottsbalken”, our criminal law.

          Brottsbalken, Kap. 16, 8 § Den som i ett uttalande eller i ett annat meddelande som sprids uppmanar till våld mot, hotar eller uttrycker missaktning för en folkgrupp, en annan sådan grupp av personer eller en enskild i någon av dessa grupper med anspelning på ras, hudfärg, nationellt eller etniskt ursprung, trosbekännelse, sexuell läggning eller könsöverskridande identitet eller uttryck, döms för hets mot folkgrupp till fängelse i högst två år.

          Criticism of religion however is raised in other, more important parts of law, namely the Swedish form of Government (our constitution). It is there, specifically and repeatedly, mentioned as a kind of speech and expression that is protected. As such, in the case of Salwan Momika it’d have been necessary to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he intended to target muslims by burning quran books, rather than (as he himself claimed) to openly criticize islam. Nobody has as of the posting of this comment been deemed guilty of agitation for burning any religious texts in Sweden under the current law.

          This is part of why the trial of him and his companion ended up taking so long. It was one of the first high-profile cases of its kind and likely to set precedent on the topic. As such, I consider his assassination on the night before the verdict of his trial to be not only a barbaric act of violence, but also an explicit attack on the Swedish legal system, our constitution and our freedom of expression.

          • UniversalBasicJustice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            13 hours ago

            I’m an American mechanical engineer that’s been considering working and living in Sweden for a long time, with recent events pushing me to pursue it with more vigor. Do you know of any culture/law/history primers that may be accessible for an English speaker? Or similar subject but in Swedish with children’s book-style vocab/grammar? Cultural integration for kindergartners would be excellent. I’d just like to not make a fool of myself!

  • 58008@lemmy.world
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    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.

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      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?

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        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.

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          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.

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        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.

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      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…

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        It’s also super tiring to read all the ahmadullilah comments under the TRT post on YouTube about this. Kind of offensive too, you know.

        I’m with you 100% combatting islamophobia everywhere, but I don’t see much in terms of combatting …islamic-supremacy(?), see I don’t even know what to call it. We don’t even name it. It’s not “Islamism” because that means anything and nothing, it’s not “Islamic extremism” because that’s like the maniacs. What do we call the low key thing? The one that feeds into the culture war on the muslim side?

        • MetalMachine@feddit.nl
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          People with different views will say similar things. People were happy about what Luigi did, or at least unsympathetic to the CEO. Many here, espoused how they wished the trump assassination was successful. The point is, people can still disagree about the action but be happy that someone they didn’t like died.

          Plus, he was a part of a brigade that killed people in Iraq and a zionist who called Palestinians rats.

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          Idk man YouTube, TikTok, Meta, doesn’t matter all social media platforms are anyway just feeding on rage bait and I’m pretty sure they have significantly radicalized millions if not hundreds of millions at this point.

          To them it doesn’t matter if you’re cheering for ISIS or Hitler or Israel, they just care about more engagement so that some product teams can show some engagement & add KPIs going up during performance review season.

          Idk I think some kind of supremacy is accurate here indeed? Some seek white supremacy, other ethnic supremacy, religious supremacy, it’s all the same poison to me.

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        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