Sweden looks to cut cash to Brotherhood-linked groups

A study for the Swedish government asks whether public money should be spent on groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is designated as a terrorist group in the UAE and other countries.

Sweden’s Islamic Federation, the Stockholm Mosque and the Swedish Muslim Council are said to have ties to the Brotherhood, Malmo University social anthropologist Aje Carlbom said.

Mr Carlbom wrote the report on behalf of MBS, the agency responsible for civil defence and emergency management in Sweden.

The 70-page Islamic Activism

in a Multicultural Context questions whether Swedish groups should receive state support if they are linked to the Muslim organisation.

Mr Carlbom also questioned whether some of the Swedish groups were working in the public interest.

“The Swedish state finds the question of gender equality very important, while at the same time giving money to organisations that do not work for gender equality, but for other values,” he told Swedish Radio.

Temmam Asbai, chairman of the Islamic Federation, rejected allegations that his group was tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, saying that the federation was a “Swedish organisation, not ruled by anyone else”.

He said that if Sweden denied public funding based on unfounded suspicions, it would serve to silence uncomfortable opinions.

Iman Mahoud Khalfi, head of the Stockholm Mosque, the largest mosque in Sweden, did not comment.

The Swedish Muslim Council, an umbrella organisation of Islamic organisations that represents 100,000 Swedish Muslims, also did not respond to requests for comment.

A similar MBS study last year concluded that Muslim separatists were threatening Swedish values by building a “parallel societal structure that competes with the rest of society over Swedish citizens’ value systems”, but it was criticised as unscientific.

Mr Carlbom’s latest study is seen in Sweden as a follow-up. Two of the people he interviewed in the new study were reportedly former members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Dagens Nyheter journalist Erik Helmerson wrote an opinion piece on Thursday called: “the state provides a mouthpiece for the Muslim Brotherhood’s message.”

“If we mean business with integration, we cannot provide millions of kronor to organisations wishing to segregate Muslims,” Helmerson said.

The Brotherhood, active in Sweden since the 1970s, operates in 70 countries and purports to have more than 1 million members.