Encouraged by Swedish law, neo-Nazis target Jews, Muslims

By Muhammet Tarhan

ANKARA (AA) -The Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR), a neo-Nazi organization, is among those who have benefited from Sweden's broad description of freedom of expression that makes the burning of Quran "legal from a Swedish point of view."

Rasmus Paludan, an extremist Swedish-Danish politician, was behind the Quran burning in the Swedish capital on Saturday.

A day later Edwin Wagensveld, a far-right Dutch politician and leader of the Islamophobic group Pegida, tore out pages from the Muslim holy book in the Hague. A video he shared on Twitter also showed him burning the torn-out pages in a pan.

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said his government did not support the burning of holy scriptures, but argued that freedom of expression "makes it legal from a Swedish point of view."

Founded in Sweden in 1997 by neo-Nazi nationalists, the Swedish Resistance Movement (SMR) has since become a wider movement known as NMR in the Nordic region after having opened branches in Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland, where it was banned.

Its aim is abolishing the current democratic order in Nordic countries.

Openly racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi, the group has been targeting not only Jews, but also people and groups they see as ideologically opposed, and more recently Muslim refugees.

In 2022, some members of the US Congress called for the NMR to be added to the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Klas Lund, the founder and first leader of SMR, was convicted in 1986 for the murder of anti-apartheid campaigner Ronny Landin, who intervened to stop the attack on three immigrants by the neo-Nazis.

Finland banned the NMR in November 2017, but the group has continued to stage demonstrations while appealing the decision.

On Jan. 5, 2017, individuals allegedly associated with NMR Sweden detonated homemade bombs outside a refugee lodging center in Gothenberg, injuring an immigration officer.

They also targeted a Jewish association in Umea with swastikas in April 2017, and the association had to close down due to these threats.

The NMR also targeted Jews in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland with antisemitic campaigns during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Hebrew calendar in September 2020.

Attacks by NMR members reflect a deeper, systematic commitment to and spread of the group's extremist, violent ideology.

It is said that members are also trained in martial arts to react when violence occurs on the streets.