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Anti-Turkey demo in Sweden deepens tensions over NATO bid

Turkey on Saturday cancelled a visit by the Swedish defence minister over a demonstration by an anti-Islamic extremist in Stockholm, sparking a fresh crisis over Ankara's blocking of Sweden's bid to join the NATO military alliance.

Published: 21 January 2023 13:16 CET
Updated: 21 January 2023 17:10 CET
Rasmus Paludan demonstration
The far-right provocateur Rasmus Paludan burned a copy of the Muslims' holy book, the Koran, near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on Saturday. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

Turkish officials denounced the permission granted to Rasmus Paludan, a right-wing Swedish-Danish politician, to stage a protest in front of its embassy in the Swedish capital.

Last year, Paludan’s announcement of a Koran-burning “tour” during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan sparked riots across Sweden.

A day after summoning the Swedish ambassador over Paludan’s latest demo, Ankara said it had called off the visit by Defence Minister Pål Jonson for January 27th, aimed at overcoming Turkey’s objections to Sweden’s NATO bid.

The meeting “has lost its significance and meaning, so we cancelled,” Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said.

Jonson said the decision to postpone was made jointly with Akar on Friday at the US military base in Ramstein, Germany, where Ukraine’s allies were meeting to discuss further weapon supplies for Kyiv.

“Our relations with Turkey are very important to Sweden, and we look forward to continuing the dialogue on common security and defence issues at a later date,” Jonson tweeted.

The protest by Paludan went ahead on Saturday under heavy police protection, according to an AFP journalist, with around 100 people –including a large number of reporters — gathered near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.

After a diatribe of almost an hour in which he attacked Islam and immigration in Sweden, Paludan set fire to the Koran with a lighter.

“If you don’t think there should be freedom of expression, you have to live somewhere else,” he told the crowd.

READ MORE: ANALYSIS: Riots over Koran burning test Swedish tolerance

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu vented fury at Swedish authorities’ failure to ban the protest. “It’s a racist action, it’s not about freedom of expression,” he said.

A pro-Turkish demonstration of around 100 people also took place on the other side of the embassy.

Demonstration

A demonstration in support of Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan outside the Turkish Embassy on 21st January 2023. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

‘Modern barbarism’

Swedish police gave their authorisation for the demo on Friday after determining it was protected by the country’s liberal freedom of speech laws.

But Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said allowing the protest was “encouraging hate crimes and Islamophobia”.

“The attack on sacred values is not freedom but modern barbarism,” he tweeted on Saturday.

Devlet Bahceli, head of the nationalist MHP party that is the junior partner in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s governing coalition, vowed that “Sweden’s NATO membership will not be approved by the parliament”.

Turkey had already summoned Sweden’s ambassador on Friday to “condemn this provocative action which is clearly a hate crime — in strongest terms,” a diplomatic source said.

READ MORE: Swedish FM: ‘improper’ for me to try to stop Turkey embassy Koran burning

It was the second time this month that Sweden’s Turkey envoy had been summoned. On January 12th, he was called to answer for a video posted by the pro-Kurd Rojava Committee of Sweden that depicted Erdogan swinging by his legs from a rope.

A tweet by the group compared Erdogan to Italy’s Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who was hung upside down after his execution in the closing days of World War II.

On Saturday the pro-Kurd Rojava Committee of Sweden joined a rally in Stockholm, held in protest against Erdogan and the Swedish NATO accession.

According to news agency TT, there were more than 500 people who marched to Medborgarplatsen on Södermalm.

Demonstrators on Norra Bantorget protesting against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Swedish NATO accession. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT

Both Sweden and its neighbour Finland are hoping to join NATO, dropping decades of military non-alignment in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But they need the consent of Turkey, a member of the alliance, to join. Ankara says its approval is conditional on Swedish steps to extradite people it accuses of terrorism or of having played a part in the 2016 coup attempt against Erdogan.

Turkey says Sweden has not done enough to crack down on Kurdish groups that Ankara views as “terrorist.”

READ MORE: US pressures Turkey to approve Swedish Nato bid ‘soon’

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MILITARY

EXPLAINED: Is national service compulsory in Sweden?

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently revealed plans to introduce compulsory national service, referencing Sweden as an inspiration for this. But how does national service work in Sweden, and is it compulsory for everyone?

Published: 27 May 2024 15:19 CEST
EXPLAINED: Is national service compulsory in Sweden?

Although Sweden hasn’t formally been involved in a war since 1814, the country has had some sort of conscription system since the 17th century, excluding a seven-year window between 2010 and 2017, where it was scrapped (or more specifically, “suspended in peacetime”).

Historically, it applied to men only, but was extended to include women in 2010.

Is it mandatory?

Yes and no.

When a Swedish citizen turns 18, they receive a letter from The Swedish Defence Conscription and Assessment Agency asking for information on their health, interests and education, in order to determine whether they should be called up for compulsory military service, officially known as värnplikt (“duty to protect”). 

This document is sent out to all Swedes turning 18 in a given year, and it is mandatory to fill this in, with a few exceptions, such as people who receive benefits from the Social Insurance Agency or residential care homes for children and young people (like HVB-hem or SiS-hem).

Having said that, it is by no means every Swede turning 18 in a given year who actually ends up carrying out military service.

In 2023, the agency collected information on 102,286 young people in Sweden turning 18 that year, with 36,420 called up for testing.

If you don’t turn up to these tests, known in Swedish as mönstringen, you can be sentenced to brott mot totalförsvarsplikten or “crime against the total defence obligation”, which carries with it a fine of 2,000 kronor or up to a year in prison.

These tests at the Swedish Defence Conscription and Assessment Agency are mandatory, and include a theory test, a medical examination, eye and colour blindness tests, hearing tests, as well as an EKG test, pulse and blood pressure tests.

You’ll also need to do a general fitness test and a strength test, as well as an interview with a psychologist to determine whether you’re cut out for military training.

Each test will be scored separately, with your total points determining which course within the Swedish armed forces you’ll be assigned to. You’re allowed to express a preference, although you’re not guaranteed to get a position on the course of your choice. Military training (colloquially known as lumpen) takes between 9 and 15 months, depending on the course.

Not everyone who carries out these tests will actually be called up for military training – in 2023, 6,144 (around 6 percent of everyone turning 18 that year) were assigned a course within the Swedish army, where they were joined by an additional 1,166 individuals who had applied of their own accord. 

Those who pass the tests but who aren’t assigned a position in the army are placed in the reserves, alongside people who delayed their conscription (due to their studies, for example). People in this group could be called up to perform military service if Swedish security is placed on high alert.

What about conscientious objectors?

People who for religious or political reasons do not want to use weapons can apply to carry out weapon-free military service or vapenfri tjänst. 

This doesn’t mean that you won’t have to serve at all, but you could be assigned to civil basic training, which essentially means you’d help ensure that important services like healthcare, childcare or the fire services were still running if there was a crisis.

At the moment, there are no civil basic training courses for conscientious objectors running, although the government has the power to reintroduce these.

There is no programme in Sweden similar to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s plans for 18-year-olds to dedicate one weekend a month volunteering in the community, for example by “delivering prescriptions and food to infirm people”.

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