| Salwan Momika | |
| Birth Name: | Salwan Sabah Matthew Momika |
| Birth Date: | 23 June 1986 |
| Birth Place: | Qaraqosh, Nineveh Governorate, Iraq |
| Nationality: | Iraqi |
| Known For: | Quran desecrations |
Salwan Sabah Matthew Momika (;) is an Iraqi Assyrian refugee in Sweden and Anti-Islam activist, who is known for arranging public demonstrations where he burns and desecrates the Quran.[1]
Momika comes from the Al-Hamdaniya district of Qaraqosh, in the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh. He was raised as an Assyrian Catholic.[2] During the 2006-2008 civil war, when Christians became persecuted by the Islamic State, Momika joined the Assyrian Patriotic Party and worked as a security guard for the branch's headquarters in Mosul. According to Iraqi government sources, Momika fled his hometown in 2012 after the local court found him guilty of causing a wrongful death during a car accident and sentenced him to three years of imprisonment in Badush.[3] [4]
After the fall of Mosul to ISIS militants in June 2014, Momika joined the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) to fight against the Islamic State.[5] Specifically, he has appeared in videos in military uniform, as a part of the Christian unit "Spirit of God Jesus Son of Mary Battalions" (Kataib Rouhullah Issa ibn Maryam) brandishing firearms and pledging allegiance to the Imam Ali Brigades (to which the Christian unit is linked), which are the armed wing of the Islamic Movement of Iraq.[6] The Imam Ali brigades are known to have close connections to Iran and is considered to be an active part of the Axis of Resistance in the Middle East.[7] The brigades were also accused of committing war crimes and engaging in sectarian violence.[8] Momika also founded the 'Syriac Democratic Union' and the 'Falcons of the Syriac Forces' in 2014, an armed militia which was affiliated with the Christian militia Babylon Brigade, the armed wing of the Babylon Movement. In 2017, Momika was involved in an internal power struggle with fellow Babylon Movement leader Rayan al-Kildani, which he lost. He fled the country as a result.[9]
In 2017, Momika fled to Germany with a Schengen visa, where he announced his atheism and apostasy from Christianity.[10] In April 2018, Momika applied for a refugee visa to Sweden, and he was since then, registered as an Iraqi refugee until April 2021 when he was granted a three-year temporary residence permit, which was due to expire in April 2024.[11] Momika was denied a permanent residence, necessary to acquire Swedish citizenship, because he lied in his asylum application by denying that he was in the Imam Ali Brigades, claiming that he was associated with the political branch and not the paramilitary branch of the movement. From his early days in Sweden, he was seen in pictures outside the Riksdag along with a member of parliament for the Christian Democrats, Robert Halef. He also had a meeting with Sweden Democrats parliamentarian Julia Kronlid.[11] Momika has later stated that he wants to run for Riksdag as a candidate for the party.[12]
After he was granted a residence permit in Sweden, while still under investigation for his associations with the pro-Iranian militant group, he threatened a man with whom he shared accommodation with a knife, which resulted in him being convicted for unlawful threats the following year. He was sentenced to probation and community service.[11]
See main article: 2023 Quran burnings in Sweden. In 2023, Momika arranged a series of demonstrations against Islam. Momika has posted dozens of videos online, often with majority-Muslim country names in Arabic as hashtags, prior to the Quran burnings. This makes it seem likely that he was trying to stir up as much publicity as possible for his Koran burning. During these demonstrations, he desecrated the Quran and burned it with police protection and legal permission. The Quran burnings were accompanied by attacks towards Momika.[13] [14]
Also in 2023, the Swedish Migration Agency decided that Momika is to be expelled from the country.[15] Due to threats against him in Iraq, the expulsion could however not be exercised, and he thus received a new temporary residence permit until April 2024.[16]
On 27 March 2024, it was reported that Momika had left Sweden for Norway to seek asylum.[17] Shortly after his departure, there were reports in social media that he had been found dead in Norway, but Norwegian police appeared to deny the rumours.[18] On 4 April, Norwegian police announced they had arrested Momika on 28 March, and that they planned to deport him back to Sweden on the basis of the Dublin Regulation.[19] He was transported back to Sweden on 11 April.[20]