Sweden

STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Nobel Foundation on Saturday withdrew its invitation for representatives of Russia, Belarus and Iran to attend this year’s Nobel Prize award ceremonies after the decision announced a day earlier “provoked strong reactions.”

18 August 2023; MEMO: A suspicious envelope full of white powder was sent to a mosque in Sweden on Friday, police said, Anadolu Agency reports.

In a statement, police in the south-western city of Gothenburg said that an investigation was opened and the powder sent to the mosque in the region of Hisingen was being analysed.

STOCKHOLM, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- The terrorist threat level in Sweden has been raised from "elevated" to "high," the Swedish Security Service (SAPO) said on Thursday.

The threat posed by "violent Islamist actors has increased over the past year," Director General of the Swedish Security Service Charlotte von Essen said in a press release.

"Sweden has gone from being considered a legitimate target for terrorist attacks to being considered a prioritized target. In our assessment, this threat will remain for a long time," von Essen said.

07 August 2023; MEMO: A recent wave of Quran burnings in Sweden and Denmark is "an assertion of a broader anti-immigrant, anti-non-European right-wing bias that has grown to be quite politically strong," a former UN special rapporteur has said.

"There's no legitimate purpose by allowing groups to burn the holy scriptures of another religious faith," Richard Falk, a professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, said.

04 August 2023; MEMO: An Iranian-born woman has burnt a copy of the Quran in the Swedish capital Stockholm under police protection.

The woman, Bayrami Marjan, 47, set fire to the Quran at the Angbybadet beach in Bromma on the shore of Lake Malaren.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden plans to step up border controls and identity checks at crossing points as its security situation deteriorates during a Quran burning crisis that has shaken both Sweden and neighboring Denmark in recent weeks.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the measure is expected to be approved by his government on Thursday.

It is meant to prevent “people with very weak connections to Sweden” to come to the country “to commit crimes or to act in conflict with Swedish security interests,” he said at a news conference in Stockholm on Tuesday.

26 July 2023; MEMO: Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom has expressed his country's deep regret and categorical rejection of the repeated incidents when copies of the Holy Quran were burned by protesters, describing them as "despicable". According to the foreign ministry in Algiers, he made his comments during a phone call with his Algerian counterpart, Ahmed Ataf, after the Swedish charge d'affaires in the North African country was summoned to hear Algeria's protest about the incidents in Stockholm.

STOCKHOLM, July 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A Swedish court has jailed a Kurdish man for four-and-a-half years for crimes including attempting to finance terrorism.

It is the first time Sweden’s updated terror laws have been used in a case involving the Kurdish militant PKK.

Turkiye has long called on Stockholm to crack down on Kurdish separatists.

Sweden’s bid to join Nato has been delayed principally by Turkiye’s demand that it extradites dozens of people it views as terrorists.

07 July 2023; MEMO: The Swedish government is examining whether it could change the law to stop people setting the Quran on fire in public, as recent burnings of the Muslim Holy Book have damaged Sweden's security, Justice Minister, Gunnar Strommer, told Aftonbladet paper on Thursday.

07July 2023; MEMO: A Swedish court, on Thursday, found a man guilty of attempting to finance the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), in a ruling that could help end Turkiye's veto of Sweden's application to join the NATO military alliance, Reuters reports.