A newly formed Swedish political party has proposed making all Muslims in Sweden a “special minority”, claiming that Muslims suffer daily from violence and verbal attacks.
The Nyans Party say they want Muslims in Sweden to be recognised in the same way the country recognises Sami peoples and Jews as special minorities, saying that they want so-called Islamophic crimes to receive a special classification under the law, SVT reports.
The party chairman Mikail Yüksel, who was kicked out of the Centre Party for his association with the ultra-nationalist Turkish Grey Wolves, told the broadcaster: “Sweden’s Muslims daily experience both physical and verbal attacks of a racist nature.”
“It is not the veil that must be fought, it is the oppression. At the same time, parents have the right to raise their children based on their culture and religion,” he added.
When his prior association with the Grey Wolves was raised, Yüksel said that he abstained from Turkish politics saying: “I meet people with different political opinions, but that doesn’t mean I share their opinions.”
Around 60 people are said to have attended a meeting for the party in the Stockholm suburb of Kista, the same area that was rocked by a bombing earlier this week.
The party, which was formed in November of last year, will not be the first attempt to create a Muslim-oriented political party in Sweden.
In 2017, the Swedish electoral authority refused to register the Jasin party after it was revealed that radical Islamists had largely taken over the party. Despite its spokesman claiming the party was for all Swedes, he admitted that many members were supportive of enacting sharia in Sweden.
Several other countries across Europe have also seen the rise of similar parties, the most successful among them being the Denk Party in the Netherlands which won three seats in the Dutch parliament in 2017.