COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Swedish authorities on Tuesday accused Iran of being behind thousands of text messages sent to people in Sweden calling for… Revenge for burning the Holy Quran in 2023Iran denied the accusation.
According to officials in Stockholm, the cyberattack was carried out by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which hacked into the SMS service and sent “around 15,000 text messages in Swedish” in the wake of a series of public Quran burnings that took place over several months in Sweden during the summer of 2023.
Chief prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said an initial investigation by Sweden’s domestic security agency showed that “the Iranian state, via Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, carried out the data breach at a Swedish company that runs a major SMS service.”
The name of the Swedish company was not mentioned.
The Iranian embassy in Sweden rejected the accusations in a statement, calling them “baseless” and saying they were aimed at “poisoning” relations between Tehran and Stockholm, the official IRNA news agency reported. The embassy expects the Swedish government to prevent the spread of such statements, the report said.
In August 2023, Swedish media reported that a large number of people in Sweden received text messages in Swedish calling for revenge against the people who burned the Quran, according to Ljungqvist, adding that the sender of the messages was “a group calling itself the Enzo Team.”
Sweden’s SVT broadcaster published a photo of a text message saying, “Those who desecrated the Holy Quran should have their work covered with ashes” and describing Swedes as “devils.”
The demonstrations were held under the Swedish constitution’s freedom of expression. The police approved the demonstrations. However, the incidents have left Sweden torn between its commitment to freedom of expression and its respect for religious minorities.
The conflict of fundamental principles complicated Sweden’s desire to join NATO, an expansion that gained urgency after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine But it needs the approval of all coalition members.
Turkey and its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had temporarily blocked Sweden’s accession, citing reasons including anti-Turkey and anti-Islam protests in Stockholm, but Sweden finally became a NATO member in March.
The Swedish government said at the time that it “strongly rejects the anti-Islam act committed by individuals in Sweden,” adding that the desecration did not reflect the country’s position.
In July of last year, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei The Organization of Islamic Cooperation issued a statement saying that “the insult to the Holy Quran in Sweden is a bitter, conspiratorial and dangerous event” and that the desecration “created feelings of hatred and hostility” in Muslim countries towards the Quran-burners and their governments.
In a separate statement, SAPO’s chief operating officer, Fredrik Hallström, said Tuesday that the aim of the text messages was to “paint Sweden as an anti-Islam country and create division in society.”
He accused “foreign powers” of seeking to “exploit vulnerabilities” and said they were “now acting more aggressively, and this is a development that is likely to escalate.” He did not name any specific country.
Meanwhile, Swedish Justice Minister Gunnar Strömer told Swedish news agency TT: “It is of course very serious that a state actor, in this case Iran, according to SAPO’s assessment is behind an act aimed at destabilising Sweden or increasing polarisation in our country.”
There is no law in Sweden that specifically prohibits the burning or desecration of the Qur’an or other religious texts. As in many Western countries, Sweden has no laws against blasphemy.
“Since the actors are working for a foreign power, in this case Iran, we believe that the conditions for prosecution abroad or extradition to Sweden are not in place for the persons suspected of being behind the violation,” Ljungqvist said.
Ljungqvist, who works with Sweden’s top prosecutor, said that although the initial investigation had been closed, this “does not mean that the suspected hackers have been completely ruled out” and that the investigation could be reopened.
Swedish domestic security agency in may He accused Iran of using well-established criminal networks. In Sweden as an agency to target Israeli or Jewish interests in the Scandinavian country.
The Iranian embassy in Sweden could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
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Associated Press writer Gary Tanner in Helsinki contributed to this report.
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