Houthis in Yemen ban imports from Sweden over Quran burning incident

Days after an Iraqi refugee named Salwan Momika stomped on a duplicate of the Quran and set one other on fireplace exterior a mosque in Stockholm on the event of Eid-al-Adha, the Houthi motion in Yemen has banned imports from Sweden.

Houthi-run TV channel Al Masirah quoted the commerce Minister as saying, “Yemen is the first Islamic country to ban imports of Swedish goods after its violations and desecration of Muslims’ holiest.”

He referred to as upon different Islamic nations to ban imports from the Scandinavian nation. The Houthi commerce Minister additionally mentioned that imports from Sweden had been restricted and that the ban had a symbolic worth. He additionally mentioned that it was the least factor that they might do to protest in opposition to the burning of Quran.

Yemen’s Houthi authorities ban Swedish imports over Koran burning https://t.co/UURTfyDnyH pic.twitter.com/9EdjeKBym4

— Reuters (@Reuters) July 8, 2023
Who are the Houthis

The Houthi motion (additionally referred to as Ansar Allah) is an Islamist motion comprising Zaydi Shiites from the Houthi tribe. Iran has been accused of offering army assist to Houthis and utilizing them as its proxy for shared geopolitical pursuits.

They management the Northern a part of Yemen, together with the cities of Sa’dah and Sana’a, and struggle the coalition of Gulf international locations led by Saudi Arabia.

Interestingly, the novel Islamist Houthi motion was designated as a terrorist group by Donald Trump previous to leaving the Oval Office. The resolution was, nonetheless, reversed after Joe Biden turned the US President.

The Quran burning incident in Sweden

Prior to Eid-Al-Adha, on June 28, the Swedish Police gave one Salwan Momika permission to burn the Quran at an indication exterior the biggest mosque in Stockholm after a Swedish court docket struck down the police’s ban on Quran-burning demonstrations.

Two different requests, one by a non-public citizen and the opposite by an organisation, for comparable actions that embrace Quran burning had been turned down by police in February exterior the Turkish and Iraqi embassies in Stockholm. 

The appeals court docket concluded in June that the protests ought to have been permitted. It dominated, “The order and security problems that the police had cited had not been clearly connected to the planned event or its immediate vicinity.”

Before this, Danish far-right politician Rasmus Paludan burnt a duplicate of the Quran subsequent to the Turkish embassy within the nation’s capital prompting Turkey to halt discussions with Sweden about its NATO membership in January this 12 months.