"It is not a right to come to our country and build monuments to an alien and imperialist ideology".
So said Jimmie Åkesson (SD) during the party's national days this weekend.
"His statement is based on a very old notion that people do not want to recognize Islam as a religion and want to reduce it to an ideology in this case," says Mohammad Fazlhashemi.
Completely contrary to religious freedom
That a religion is inherently imperialist is nothing strange. Several religions are or have been so historically, according to Fazlhashemi
"You can interpret imperialism in Islam in different ways. If you talk about extremist groups, you could say that they have a very extreme view. But if we talk about Islam as a religion, Islam is like any other religion, according to Fazlhashemi.
Want to remove Muslim attributes
During his speech, Jimmie Åkesson also said that Muslim attributes in the cityscape – such as minarets, domes and crescents – should be removed completely.
According to Victoria Enkvist, Associate Professor of Constitutional Law at Uppsala University, there is currently no legal basis for removing various forms of symbols and expressions on the grounds that they can be related to a religion.
"Imposing restrictions on a specific religion is discrimination according to both the constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights," writes Victoria Enkvist in an email to SVT.
"Could be counterproductive"
The Sweden Democrats also want the Security Service to be given the opportunity to eavesdrop on mosques preventively.
According to Victoria Enkvist, Åkesson's proposal for wiretapping is not possible with today's legislation.
"At present, there is no legal basis for intercepting conversations simply because the conversations take place in a mosque. Nor is it possible to enact such a law with regard to how the protection of freedoms and rights is enacted," writes Victoria Enkvist.