Iraq expelled the Swedish ambassador and recalled Iraq’s chargé d’affaires in Sweden on Thursday, in an angry response to a protest in Sweden where a copy of the Koran was desecrated. Baghdad also suspended Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson’s operating licence. The expulsion came after hundreds of Iraqis, many of them reportedly supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr, an influential Shia cleric and political leader, stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad and set fire to part of the building ahead of the anticipated destruction of the Islamic religious text. Tobias Billström, Sweden’s foreign minister, said all embassy staff were safe but criticised Iraq for failing to protect the embassy. Sweden has seen several Koran burnings in recent years, mostly by far-right and anti-Muslim activists. The burnings provoke outrage across the Muslim world, but Sweden’s far-reaching freedom of speech laws mean that the country’s courts have overturned attempts by police to block such protests over security concerns.
Photograph Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images