Extreme reactions: Delving into the past of an incendiary protestor

His actions may have sparked a serious diplomatic spat between Iraq and Sweden this week, and they also look likely to cause ongoing demonstrations across the Muslim world.

But it is hard to know just how seriously to take the motivations of the Iraqi asylum seeker who has publicly burned pages from Islam’s holy book, the Quran, in Stockholm. Salwan Momika, 37, had planned another protest for this week where he said he would burn the Quran.

This came less than a month after the Iraqi, who has been in Sweden since 2018, had already caused an international outcry in late June when he burned pages from the book outside a Stockholm mosque during the major Muslim holiday of Eid al- Adha. Momika, who describes himself on Facebook as a “thinker and writer … a free atheist,” said his protest indicated his feelings about the religion.

This week, Momika didn’t manage to burn any pages from the Quran. On Thursday, standing outside the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm, the lone demonstrator kicked the book and also stamped on an Iraqi flag. Momika also wiped his feet on pictures of leading Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and of Iran’s religious leader, Ali Khamenei.

The event caused upset in Iraq before it even happened. There, followers loyal to the cleric al-Sadr broke into the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad early on Thursday morning and lit a fire on the grounds. The Iraqi prime minister then ordered the expulsion of the Swedish ambassador, withdrew Iraq’s charge d’affaires from Sweden and suspended the operations permit of Swedish telecommunications company, Ericsson, in Iraq.

A France24 investigation looked more closely into social media posts proffered by Iraqis that claimed to identify Momika, who is originally from the northern Iraqi state of Ninawa and of Christian denomination.

Momika arrived in Sweden in 2018, and Swedish authorities confirmed that he was granted a threeyear residency permit in 2021. France24 researchers verified a number of videos showing Momika in military clothing, associating with members of other militias. They concluded he was the same man who founded a political party in Iraq, the Syriac Democratic Union Party, in 2014, as well as an associated militia.

Momika’s own militia, which, like many others at the time, was originally set up to fight the extremist “Islamic State” (IS) group, appears to later have been linked with a motley variety of other groups in Iraq. That includes militias with Shiite Muslim affiliations that support, and are supported by, neighboring Iran, as well as Kurdish militias that espouse a more atheist and communist agenda.

Iraqi journalists wrote that Momika left the country because of a power struggle with the leader of another Christian militia. Momika is also thought to have supported the cleric al-Sadar at one stage, and then to have also agreed with anti-government protests in Iraq. A town council member told the publication The New Arab that Momika had committed fraud in his hometown.

The Iraqi protester has apparently also been in trouble with Swedish authorities after threatening his flatmate with a knife, the Swedish newspaper Expressen reported in an interview with Momika in June. All this led France24 investigators to imply that Momika’s motivations for his recent protests might be questionable. Other earlier reports in Arabic have voiced similar suspicions.