Immigration of Muslims and the rise of communal clashes in Sweden

A large number of people in Sweden are reportedly opposing non-Westerns, mostly Muslim immigrants. The rise of the economic crisis, the establishment of fundamental Islamic organizations like the Islamic State (ISIS), Boko Haram etc., and significant violent protests and unrest against Governments led to rising in the immigration of Muslims to European countries. Many of these migrants entered illegally and spread across European countries. However, these people failed to assimilate into European culture, which led to communal clashes. 

According to the Pew Research Center, between 2010 and 2016, the number of Muslims living in Germany rose from 3.3 million (4.1% of the population) to nearly 5 million (6.1%), while the rest of the population shrank modestly from 77.1 million to 76.5 million. Immigration has been a major factor in the growth of Germany's Muslim population. But, even if there is no more immigration, Muslims will continue to increase as a share of Germany's population in future decades because German Muslims, on average, are much younger and have more babies than Germans as a whole.

Since the late 1960s and more recently, immigration from predominantly Muslim countries has impacted the demographics of religion in Sweden and has been the main driver of the spread of Islam in the country. According to a 2019 report from the Swedish Agency for Support to Faith Communities, there were 200,445 Muslims in Sweden who practised their religion regularly; this count came from those registered with Islamic congregations. Population increases between 2004 and 2012 have been attributed to immigrants from Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan. The US Department of State's Sweden 2014 International Religious Freedom Report set the 2014 figure of Muslims in Sweden at around 600,000 people, 6% of the total Swedish population. A 2017 Pew Research report documents Sweden's Muslim population at 810,000 people, 8.1% of Sweden's total population of 10 million people. 

Following is the list of controversies reported in Sweden

1. In the 2000s, according to Europol, Islamists in Sweden were not primarily seeking to commit attacks in Sweden but were rather using Sweden as a base of operations against other countries and for providing logistical support for groups abroad.

2. In 2010, the Swedish Security Service estimated that a total of 200 individuals were involved in the Swedish violent Islamist extremist milieu.

3. On 11 December 2010, two bombs exploded in central Stockholm, killing the bomber and 30 and 40 innocent people. Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, an Iraqi-born Swedish citizen, was suspected of carrying out the bombing.

4. 20-year-old A. Sevigin was detained in February 2016 for attempting to construct a splinter bomb. He travelled to Turkey in an attempt to join the Islamic State before his arrest.

5. On 7 April 2017, a vehicle-ramming Islamist terrorist attack took place in central Stockholm. The perpetrator was Rakhmat Akilov, a 39-year-old rejected asylum seeker and a citizen of Uzbekistan. 

6. In 2017, Swedish Security Service director Anders Thornberg stated that the number of violent Islamic extremists residing in Sweden to number was estimated to be "thousands".

7. In March 2018, Kurdish authorities reported they had captured 41 IS supporters with either Swedish citizenship or residence permit in Sweden, of which 5 had key positions in the organization and one was the head of the ISIL propaganda efforts.

8. On 31 April 2018, 46-year-old man who had arrived as a refugee from Uzbekistan was arrested when police searched and found explosives on his property. In March 2019 he was sentenced to 7 years in prison for planning a terrorist attack in Sweden in the name of the Islamic State.

9. In January 2019, one 30-year-old Alftaf Yasin Tarid was sentenced to three years in jail for disseminating IS propaganda in Sweden.

10. In March 2019, a refugee from Uzbekistan was sentenced to seven years in prison for planning a terrorist attack in Sweden in the name of the Islamic State and financing serious crime. 

11. In June 2019, two imams, Abo Raad, active at Gävle mosque and another active in Umeå were deported due to their promoting violent extremism.

12. On 29 August 2020, riots broke out in Malmö and Ronneby. Swedish police prevented Rasmus Paludan, a Danish politician, from entering the country. As a result, anti-immigration activists held protests and burned the Quran. In response, a mob of 300 Muslims gathered in counter-protest, burned tires, threw rocks and chunks of concrete at the police, and smashed bus shelters, and witnesses heard shouts of "Allāhu ʾakbar" and "La ilaha ilallah".

Above are some of the important incidents disturbing communal harmony in Sweden. Experiencing cultural and faith differences, a significant number of Swedish people started opposing the immigration of Muslims into the country. They also observed that most Muslims are not following the law. According to them, the burn down of the Quran is the freedom of expression. However, according to Muslims, it is blasphemy and subjected to the death penalty as per Sharia law. As a result, one may conclude that Sweden will observe unrest across the country and opposition from Islamic countries in respective international forums. Turkey has already declared that it will not allow entering Sweden in NATO, an alliance of countries from Europe and North America.