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ISLAM

Topless Femen activists target Swedish mosque

Three women from the feminist activist movement Femen entered a mosque on Södermalm in central Stockholm on Saturday morning, baring their breats and chanting "No sharia" and "Free women".

Published: 29 June 2013 17:00 CEST
Topless Femen activists target Swedish mosque

The women entered the main central Stockholm mosque at around 11am on Saturday.

Mosque employees called the police who dispatched several units to the scene. Shortly after their arrival they emerged with the still bare-breasted women and walked to a transport vehicle.

According to the duty police officer Jonas Svalan the women are now suspected of disorderly conduct due to their nudity and assault for having allegedly shoved somebody.

The women are reported to originate from Egypt, Tunisia and Sweden.

Femen is originally a Ukrainian women’s group that applies “sextremism” to draw attention to equality and democracy issues.

The group’s perhaps most high profile campaign came during the European Football Championship in 2012 when Femen’s bare-breasted leaders capitalized on the massive media presence to stage protests against sex trafficking.

The group has recently been very active in France and only last week several activists accosted the French President François Hollande as he visited the Paris airshow.

Earlier this year they caused outrage when they bared all at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to bid their own ‘adieu’ to Pope Benedict.

TT/The Local/pvs

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PROTESTS

Calls for special police tactics to be available across Sweden

The chairwoman of the Police Association West Region has said that police special tactics, known as Särskild polistaktik or SPT, should be available across Sweden, to use in demonstrations similar to those during the Easter weekend.

Published: 24 April 2022 15:56 CEST
Calls for special police tactics to be available across Sweden

SPT, (Särskild polistaktik), is a tactic where the police work with communication rather than physical measures to reduce the risk of conflicts during events like demonstrations.

Tactics include knowledge about how social movements function and how crowds act, as well as understanding how individuals and groups act in a given situation. Police may attempt to engage in collaboration and trust building, which they are specially trained to do.

Katharina von Sydow, chairwoman of the Police Association West Region, told Swedish Radio P4 West that the concept should exist throughout the country.

“We have nothing to defend ourselves within 10 to 15 metres. We need tools to stop this type of violent riot without doing too much damage,” she said.

SPT is used in the West region, the South region and in Stockholm, which doesn’t cover all the places where the Easter weekend riots took place.

In the wake of the riots, police unions and the police’s chief safety representative had a meeting with the National Police Chief, Anders Tornberg, and demanded an evaluation of the police’s work. Katharina von Sydow now hopes that the tactics will be introduced everywhere.

“This concept must exist throughout the country”, she said.

During the Easter weekend around 200 people were involved in riots after a planned demonstration by anti-Muslim Danish politician Rasmus Paludan and his party Stram Kurs (Hard Line), that included the burning of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

Police revealed on Friday that at least 104 officers were injured in counter-demonstrations that they say were hijacked by criminal gangs intent on targeting the police. 

Forty people were arrested and police are continuing to investigate the violent riots for which they admitted they were unprepared. 

Paludan’s application for another demonstration this weekend was rejected by police.

In Norway on Saturday, police used tear gas against several people during a Koran-burning demonstration after hundreds of counter-demonstrators clashed with police in the town of Sandefjord.

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