OPINION • On Wednesday evening, Salwan Momika was shot to death in an apartment in Södertälje. The Iraqi Quran burner, who has provoked millions of Muslims worldwide, was 38 years old.

At a press conference in the morning, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson referred to the incident as a “very spectacular murder”. He didn’t want to say more than that. No condemnations. Nothing.

He doesn’t even want to mention Momika by name.

Even when TT’s and DN’s journalists ask several direct questions to Kristersson, specifically about Momika’s murder, where they mention him by name, he dodges. Kristersson doesn’t respond at all to the first question from TT about the murder. Eventually, he manages to say something halfway.

“It must be based on us knowing more about what has actually happened behind this. I will not speculate on it. That would be irresponsible,” the Prime Minister says.

Pitiful.

It is possible to condemn a murder without sympathizing with the opinions of the victim. But Kristersson doesn’t do that.

The same people in charge

Kristersson stumbles through the press conference in his own special way. A slightly dragging intonation where he emphasizes certain words a little extra. He reminds of another sluggish moderate Prime Minister. Fredrik Reinfeldt.

And in reality, it’s not so strange. Kristersson was a minister in Reinfeldt’s government. Tobias Billström, who was the Minister for Foreign Affairs until last autumn, was also part of it.

The current Minister for Migration, Johan Forssell, was Reinfeldt’s chief of staff. Minister for Social Affairs, Jakob Forss, was a state secretary. Minister for Justice, Gunnar Strömmer, was Reinfeldt’s investigator. In 2013, Strömmer presented the investigation “Swedish Citizenship”, in which he proposed to automatically grant citizenship to the children of immigrants.

Other current ministers who were part of Reinfeldt’s parliamentary support are Minister for Finance, Elisabeth Svantesson, Minister for Civil Contingencies, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, Minister for Infrastructure, Andreas Carlson, and Minister for Education, Johan Pehrson. Just to name a few.

In many respects, the so-called Tidö government is the Reinfeldt 3 government. It is largely the same people in charge. They are molded in the same form. It is largely the same policies now as it was then.

Mass immigration continues. Citizenship is handed out like candy to criminals and terrorists. To Islamists and jihadists. Nothing has been done to stop the absurd and deeply distasteful payments by the Chancellor of Justice to criminals. To convicted rapists. It continues as before.

Condemned Quran burners openly

Through their inability or unwillingness to act, the government already bears a direct responsibility for the violence in Sweden. Whether it concerns the shooting of Mikael Janicki in Skärholmen, the honor killing of Shahida Azizi in Lessebo, or most recently the murder of Salwan Momika. They happen on Kristersson’s watch.

But Kristersson and his coalition partners, which also includes the support troops in the Sweden Democrats, also have a more direct responsibility for the murder of Salwan Momika.

Almost immediately after taking office in January 2023, the government chose to openly and officially condemn the Quran burners. The condemnation was communicated through Sweden’s embassies in Turkey and Pakistan, and primarily concerned Rasmus Paludan.

“We do not share that book-burning idiot’s view,” was written on a note posted at Sweden’s consulate in Istanbul. At the same time, Sweden’s embassy in Pakistan officially branded Paludan as a “right-wing extremist”. Statements that the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Tobias Billström stood behind.

READ ALSO: Government’s fatwa: Distancing from “right-wing extremist” Paludan

The government could have chosen a different path. Even without taking a stand for or against Quran burning as such. Kristersson could, for example, have said that in Sweden there is freedom of expression, which means that people have the right to think and express whatever they want. Regardless of what he personally thinks, and even if it happens to offend someone.

Preferably with the addition that if that doesn’t suit, Arlanda is there. Go home, and never come back. Out!

Branded as a legitimate target

Even though it is obviously too much for the Prime Minister to stand up for freedom of expression and Sweden’s constitution, he could have completely refrained from commenting on the Quran burnings. That is, handle the problem just as the government has handled so many other problems so far. By looking the other way and pretending it’s raining.

But Kristersson didn’t do that. Instead, he publicly condemned the Quran burners, in front of a global bloodthirsty Islamist mob. And later that year, he followed up with a proposal to ban Quran burnings.

And it cannot be ruled out that this action contributed to sealing Salwan Momika’s fate.

Kristersson openly branded Momika as a legitimate target. He announced to an international audience that Momika was despised by more than just a small group of loud and murderous Islamists. At the same time, Momika was denied police protection. It may have been perceived by some as a green light.

On Wednesday, a man was shot dead in Södertälje for exercising Sweden’s over 250-year-old constitutional freedom of expression. But those waiting for a condemnation from the government, wait in vain.