Islam - Current Day - Violent Riots in Sweden; Convicted MB Leader Arrested in Cairo

Egypt arrests Muslim Brotherhood leader Mahmoud Ezzat

By Clyde Hughes

Mahmoud Ezzat (R) is seen during a news conference in Cairo, Egypt, on October 9, 2010. He was arrested by authorities in Cairo on Friday. File Photo by Mohamed Omar/EPA

Aug. 28 (UPI) -- Egyptian authorities on Friday arrested a leader of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood hiding in an apartment in Cairo, officials said.

Mahmoud Ezzat, a deputy supreme guide for the Muslim Brotherhood, was previously convicted in absentia for organizing several terrorist attacks in Egypt. The Egyptian interior ministry said authorities captured Ezzatin an apartment in the Cairo suburb of Al Tajammu.

Ezzat is accused of being a founder of the Muslim Brotherhood's armed wing and supervising "terrorist and subversive" operations since it was removed from power in mid-2013 following an uprising supported by the army.

Authorities took a laptop and mobile phones with coded applications found at Ezzart's location Friday, authorities said.

Ezzat, 76, was accused of assassinating former Attorney General Hisham Barakat in 2015. Authorities also blamed him for the deaths of Brigadier Gen. Wael Tahoun at his home in Ain Shams district and Major Gen. Adel Rajai in Obour City.

Ezzat previously received two death sentences in absentia for spying for Hamas and a prison break in Wadi al-Natroun.

The Muslim Brotherhood gained renewed popularity in the "Arab Spring" of 2011, which led to the election of President Muhammad Morsi in 2012. He was removed the following year, which led Cairo to bar the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Violent riots erupt in Malmo, Sweden after Koran-torching stunt,

police say they have ‘no control’ over situation

28 Aug, 2020

Demonstrators burn tires during a riot in the Rosengard neighborhood of Malmo, Sweden following a public Koran burning, August 28, 2020. ©  Reuters / TT News Agency

A wave of chaotic unrest broke out in Malmo, Sweden after anti-Islam activists filmed a public Koran burning, sparking protests that soon descended into riots, with unruly demonstrators setting fires and clashing with police.

Some 300 people gathered along a main thoroughfare in Malmo on Friday around 7:30pm local time to protest after members of a far-right political party staged a Koran burning earlier in the day, according to local press reports. As the crowd grew, fires were ignited in the street and several cars torched, prompting a heavy police response that struggled to bring the situation under control.

“We have ongoing and violent riots right now that we have no control over,” police spokesman Rickard Lundqvist told a local news outlet amid the disorder.

Clashes erupted between protesters and law enforcement in Malmo’s Rosengard district, seeing stones, paving bricks and fireworks hurled at officers and emergency response vehicles.

Rosengard is mainly Muslim migrant populated. The idiot who started this should be arrested. Nevertheless, it is another example of how easy it is to provoke moderate Muslims into mass hysteria.

Chants of “Allahu akbar” (“God is great” in Arabic) could be heard in footage that circulated online, which also showed tires and other debris burned in the street and a billowing column of black smoke rising into the night sky. A major fire was also reported in an underground parking garage in Rosengard, about 1km away from the main area of unrest.

The Koran burning which set off the riots was carried out by members of Stram Kurs (“Hard Line”), a far-right Danish political party founded by lawyer and anti-Islam activist Rasmus Paludan in 2017. The activists filmed the burning of the holy book, which was done in a public park.

Elsewhere in Malmo, three Stram Kurs members were reportedly arrested for incitement against an ethnic group after torching another Koran in public.

Paludan was barred entry into Sweden earlier on Friday, turned away at a border checkpoint near Malmo and slapped with a two-year ban from the country over concerns that he could “disturb public order,” a police spokesperson told Danish broadcaster DR. The right-wing activist had previously requested a permit to hold a demonstration in Malmo, where he was set to attend a Koran burning with street artist Dan Park, which was promptly rejected by Swedish authorities. A court argued that while “the freedom of assembly and demonstration are constitutionally protected rights,” the government may prohibit a gathering “for reasons of order and safety.”