FITTJA-HALLUNDA. Jimmie Åkesson wants to demolish mosques. The men at Fittja mosque do not agree.
”It sounds like the Nazis of the 1930s. It’s the same rhetoric that Hitler used against the Jews,” says Abdirashid Ahmed.
In a room on the ground floor of Fittja mosque south of Stockholm, we meet about ten men the day after Jimmie Åkesson’s demand to demolish mosques and wiretap them. When we enter, the men are waiting for the day’s third prayer, Asr, and are talking about Åkesson.
”I listened to his entire speech last night. It was 40 minutes. He didn’t address climate change or any other major issues, just talked about his hatred towards Muslims and Palestinians. ’Why should we help Swedes in Gaza?’ he wondered, and seemed to think they might as well die,” says Abdirashid Ahmed, who is from Somalia.
The men in the room note that they are not Turkish or Somali Muslims, but Swedish Muslims.
”We are not just anyone, we have been building Sweden since the 1960s and have the same rights as everyone else. I came here from Turkey in 1973. Now we are soon over a million Muslims in Sweden,” says mosque chairman Ismail Okur.
”The king and queen came here on May 4, 2013. I gave him a Swedish Quran and Silvia received an Islamic history. The king took off his shoes himself, Erdogan doesn’t do that,” he continues.
Selal Bulduk believes that Åkesson’s talk of demolishing mosques is just the first step.
”He wants to revoke citizenship from those who don’t behave. Is he planning to deport all of us? If he removes all Muslims from Sweden, he will have to work in healthcare himself.”
”Good people are raised here,” says Ali Mermer, who is at the mosque with his 9-year-old son Emin. ”Here he meets peers and learns how to be a loving person.”
Ismail Okur notes that no women are present this Sunday, but many women usually attend Friday prayers.
”They cook and pray at home today,” he says.
He also sends a message to the leader of the Sweden Democrats: ”Tell Jimmie Åkesson that he can visit here with his party colleagues, and we can show him what we are doing.”
In Hallunda center a few kilometers away, we find a young Muslim woman, Jasmin Uygur, who is upset about Jimmie Åkesson’s demands to demolish mosques.
”It is actually terrible, it is incitement to racial hatred. Everyone should be able to live freely and practice their religion,” she says.
As for Åkesson’s proposal to wiretap mosques, Uygur says, ”It is Islamophobia. How would it feel if I was wiretapped by the state when I want to pray and feel the peaceful atmosphere? It doesn’t sound reasonable. I think all religious sites should be wiretapped.”
Jimmie Åkesson’s statements about mosques:
– The leader of the Sweden Democrats wants to impose a total ban on the establishment of new mosques in Sweden.
– He also wants to confiscate and demolish mosques where anti-democratic propaganda is spread.
– According to Åkesson, mosques are ”monuments to a foreign and imperialistic ideology”. The SD leader wants to impose wiretapping in mosques and completely remove all minarets, domes, and crescents.
”The problem arises when one forces their religion on others. For example, when they build monuments, tall minarets, and have calls to prayer. We do not think it is reasonable,” says Jimmie Åkesson.
