A mob attacked a Kurdish man preaching beside an Israeli flag in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, with one person arrested in connection to the attack.
The attack took place on Saturday at 5:40 pm in the Brunnsparken, a central square in Gothenburg.
According to a report from the newspaper Goteborgs Posten, the group approached and assaulted the man who was preaching on the Peace Bridge with an Israeli flag beside him.
The victim, who said he is ethnically Kurdish and supports Israel, told the newspaper: “Men rushed over and hit me on the cheek. They took the flag and threw it into the canal. There is no freedom of speech.”
Following the attack, police escorted the victim from the area while a crowd of 100 people, mostly young men, shouted at the police car as it drove the preacher away.
Police Inspector Sebastian Berndtzen confirmed that a suspect had been taken into custody, saying: “It was chaotic at the scene. At the moment, we have taken into custody a person we believe is related to the beating. But it is not yet clear how many people took part in the attack.”
The incident comes just weeks after Gothenberg saw a pro-Palestinian demonstration involving a group of around 100 people. Police asked the protestors to disperse, due to Wuhan coronavirus restrictions, but were ignored. Officers chose not to use force to disperse the demonstration.
The attack on the preacher comes after a wave of antisemitic incidents in Germany, where a memorial to a synagogue destroyed by the Nazis was set on fire in Düsseldorf, a synagogue in Bonn was attacked, and multiple Israeli flags were set on fire.
Some of the Israeli flags set on fire had been hoisted by local German governments, including in Solingen, where the flag had been posted at city hall to mark the anniversary of diplomatic relations between West Germany and Israel in 1965.
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