65 year old Swedish woman in prisoned for criticising Islam & immigration

In salafist circles, while topics in the main are uncontroversial, derogatory views towards women, homosexuals, non-believers are frequently expressed. Also it is stressed that Muslims should not integrate into Swedish society.[61] The Swedish Defence University concluded in its 2018 report on salafism in Sweden that since according to salafi doctrine only following the religious laws is allowed, salafism is an anti-democratic movement. In contrast to non-salafis, salafist preach in Swedish.[62]

In the Stockholm area, non-militant salafists are predominant in the Tensta and Rinkeby areas, while a militant and al-Qaeda supporting movement was predominant in Skärholmen, Alby and Norsborg.[62]

According to the Swedish Defence University, since the 1970s, a number of residents of Sweden have been implicated in providing logistical and financial support to or joining various foreign-based transnational Islamic militant groups. Among these organizations are Hezbollah, Hamas, the GIA, Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, Al-Shabaab, Ansar al-Sunna and Ansar al-Islam. In 2010, the Swedish Security Service estimated that a total of 200 individuals were involved in the Swedish violent Islamist extremist milieu. According to the Swedish Defence University, most of these militants were affiliated with the Islamic State, with around 300 people traveling to Syria and Iraq to join the group and Al-Qaeda associated outfits like Jabhat al-nusra in the 2012-2017 period.[63]

In the Stockholm area, all networks involving jihadists are also involved in ordinary crime such as theft, burglary and blackmail whereby they acquire income.[62] Income received from illegal narcotics trading are also used finance jihadist activity as sympathisers with an ideology which uses violence to reach a higher goal will automatically be drawn into crime.[64] In the Stockholm area, individuals who have joined jihadists in Syria and Iraq have predominantly been male, whereas in Gothenburg they have been both male and female.[62]

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".[65] The Danish Security and Intelligence Service judged the number of jihadis in Sweden to be a threat against Denmark since two terrorists arriving from Sweden had already been sentenced in the 2010 Copenhagen terror plot.[66]

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 organisation and one was the head of the ISIL propaganda efforts.[67]

Morality police Edit
Investigating journalists at TV4 reported that self-appointed morality police in migrant areas such as Rinkeby, Tensta, Husby and Hjulsta harass women for wearing skirts, owning dogs or going out alone without the company of a male.[68][69]The phenomenon has also been reported in the Brandkärr district of Nyköping according to a report by the municipality.[70]

Muslim Council of Sweden Edit
Swedish social anthropologist Aje Carlbom and parliamentarian Abderisak Aden, who has founded the Islamic Democratic Institute (Islamiska demokratiska institutet), have both stated that they believe that at least part of the leading members of SMR support Islamist ideologies and are influenced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.[71]

The Muslim Council of Sweden (SMR), an umbrella organization for Swedish Muslim organizations, has been involved in several controversies. In 2006 Mahmoud Aldebe, one of the Board members of SMR, sent letters to each of the major political parties in Sweden demanding special legislation for Muslims in Sweden, including the right to specific Islamic holidays, special public financing for the building of Mosques, that all divorces between Muslim couples be approved by an Imam, and that Imams should be allowed to teach Islam to Muslim children in public schools. The request was condemned by all political parties and the government and the Swedish Liberal Party requested that an investigation be started by the Office of the Exchequer into the use of public funding of SMR. The Chairman of the Board of SMR subsequently stated that it supported the demands made by Aldebe but that it did not think that the letter had been a good idea to communicate them in a list of demands.[72]

Although the Board of SMR did not condemn Aldebe the letter has caused conflict within the organization.[73] SMR has also been accused of being closely allied to the Swedish Social Democratic Party, which has been criticised[by whom?] both inside and outside the party.[71]

Brandbergen Mosque Edit
The Brandbergen Mosque has been described by the FBI terrorism consultant Evan Kohlmann as a propaganda central for the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). According to Kohlmann, people connected to the mosque also participated in the financing of GIA's bombing campaign in France in 1995.[36]

In 2004 an Arabic-language manual, which carried the logo and address of the Brandbergen Mosque, was spread on the internet. The manual described the construction of simple chemical weapons, including how to build a chemical munition from an ordinary artillery round.[74] On December 7, 2006, the Swedish citizen Mohamed Moumou, who is described by the United States Department of the Treasury as an "uncontested leader of an extremist group centered around the Brandbergen Mosque in Stockholm", was put on the United Nations Security Council Committee 1267 list of foreign terrorists.[75]

Investigative journalism uncovers discrimination against women Edit

75]

Investigative journalism uncovers discrimination against women Edit
In 2012, the SVT program Uppdrag granskning visited 10 mosques once with a hidden camera and once with a visible camera. When the representatives were aware of being filmed, they stated that they supported values such as gender equality; however, when two undercover journalists posed as Muslim women with difficulties in their marriage, the answers from the majority of the visited imams were different. The imams told the women that they were expected to sleep with their husbands even if they did not want to and that they were to accept being beaten, and strongly discouraged them from going to the police. Since about half of the visited mosques receive state or local funding, they are expected to promote basic values of Swedish society, such as equal rights between genders and to counteract discrimination and violence.[76]

Radical preachers invited to Sweden Edit
In March 2014 Malmö Municipality withdrew financial support to a local association because they invited a Syrian lecturer who says that homosexuality should be punished by death to a charity event.[77] The organisers said that the lecturer would not attend and hold no speeches, but after a video recording showed him holding a lecture, the sum of money was recalled.[78]

In January 2015, Sigtuna council stopped radical Islamic preacher Haitham al-Haddad from holding a lecture at their premises.[79] He had been invited by Märsta Unga Muslimer (tr: Muslim Youth of Märsta) but when the council was informed of the preacher's homophobic and antisemitic views, the council cancelled the rental contract.[79]

According to criticism by British think-tank Quilliam in May 2015, Sweden is more likely than other countries to allow preachers with radical views to enter the country and spread their views.[80]

In May 2015, radical preacher Said Rageahs was invited to the mosque in Gävle where he promoted the views that whomever insults Mohammed should be killed along with apostates and advocated segregation between Muslims and non-Muslims.[81] The local imams at Gävle mosque ran the webpage muslim.se which espoused similar views (with the death penalty for homosexuality added) and according to islamologist Jan Hjärpe at Lund University their views are typical of the Wahhabi.