A Swedish newspaper has reported a threat to one of its reporters by a local imam to police after the journalist investigated a school said to be linked to a local mosque in the city of Gävle.
The reporter, who works for the newspaper Gefle Dagblad, met with the manager of the Muslim school who admitted that there was a link between the school and the Gävle mosque which has been under investigation by the paper for several years, Expressen reports.
The meeting is said to have been amicable until the imam of the mosque suddenly appeared in the office with the journalist and school manager.
The paper had previously sought comment from the imam for the last four years without reply, and the journalist took the chance to ask him a question when the situation dramatically escalated with the reporter being filmed by a third man.
After taking a picture of the imam and beginning to record the conversation, the imam became furious and threatened the reporter telling him to delete the pictures.
Editor in chief of Gefle Dagblad Anders Ingvarsson commented on the incident saying, “When a reporter, under threats, insults and waving fists, is forced to erase images, one has passed a border where one threatens our democracy and freedom of the press.”
“The direct threat was to the reporter, but through this, one affects journalism for all our readers and our ambition to portray reality,” Ingvarsson added.
For the last several years Sweden has seen an increasing problem with Islamic radicalisation, with researcher Peder Hyllengren of the Swedish Defence College claiming last year that the country had become an international hub for extremists.
Academic Sameh Egyptson has claimed that radicals like the Muslim Brotherhood have not only infiltrated certain mosques but also various political parties from as far back as the 1980s.
An example of this was seen last year during the Swedish national election when a member of the Social Democrats declared that Islamic law was more important and took precedence over Swedish laws. The candidate was later removed by the Social Democrats following the comments.