Salwan Momika, 38, an Iraqi Assyrian-Aramean asylum seeker in Sweden and outspoken atheist anti-Islam activist, was assassinated on Wednesday during a live broadcast on TikTok. He had previously gained attention for organizing public demonstrations in which he burned and desecrated the Quran.
On Thursday, the Stockholm District Court announced that a verdict in a trial involving Salwan Momika had been postponed due to the death of one of the defendants. Momika was charged in August 2024, with another defendant, of “agitation against an ethnic group” on four occasions in the summer of 2023.
A judge confirmed that the man who was fatally shot was Momika but provided no details on the circumstances of his death. Momika’s assassination took place in Södertälje, a suburb of Stockholm.
Stockholm police spokesperson Daniel Wikdahl said five suspects had been taken in for questioning.
OBITUARY: SALWAN MOMIKA – A MARTYR FOR FREE SPEECH
Today, we mourn the assassination of Salwan Momika, a fearless Iraqi-born activist who stood against the tyranny of Islam and refused to be silenced. He was murdered in Sweden, gunned down in his apartment while live streaming… pic.twitter.com/DRLsiuvHMJ
— Imtiaz Mahmood (@ImtiazMadmood) January 30, 2025
The Swedish government had granted Momika permission for the protest in which he burned the Muslim holy book, stating that his action was in line with the country’s free speech laws.
In 2023, Momika organized a series of demonstrations against Islam featuring Quran burnings, frequently posting videos online with hashtags in Arabic referencing majority-Muslim countries. During these demonstrations, he desecrated and burned copies of the Quran under police protection. His actions were met with rage in Muslim countries.
That same year, the Swedish Migration Agency ruled that Momika was to be expelled from the country. However, due to threats against him in Iraq, the expulsion could not be carried out, and he was instead granted a temporary residence permit until April 2024.
On March 27, 2024, reports emerged that Momika had left Sweden for Norway to seek asylum. Shortly after his departure, social media rumors claimed he had been found dead in Norway. On April 4, Norwegian authorities announced that they had arrested Momika on March 28 and planned to deport him back to Sweden. He was transported back to Sweden on April 11.
In 2023, a series of Quran-burning incidents in Sweden, collectively referred to by Swedish media as Korankrisen (Quran crisis), sparked widespread controversy. The most notable occurred on June 28, 2023, when Salwan Momika tore out and set fire to pages of the Quran outside the Stockholm Mosque.
On July 20, 2023, Momika planned another Quran burning in Stockholm, which led to violent protests, including an attack on the Swedish embassy in Baghdad, where demonstrators stormed the building and set it on fire.
Momika’s actions contributed to a series of copycat protests in Denmark, where copies of the Quran were burned outside the embassies of several Muslim-majority countries. In response, counterprotests, including acts of violence and economic boycotts, led Denmark to reintroduce blasphemy laws criminalizing the “inappropriate treatment” of religious texts.
