Åkesson to celebrating Syrians: Go home

Published 8 December 2024 at 22.12

Domestic. “You should see this as a good opportunity to go home”, writes SD leader Jimmie Åkesson about the Syrians in Sweden who are celebrating the fall of the Assad regime tonight.

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Hundreds of people gathered on Sunday in Sergels Square to celebrate the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.

There were speeches and waving of the old flag of the Syrian Republic, which the al Qaeda rebels have now adopted as a new flag because their previous black-and-white flags have fallen into disrepute.

Several Arabs that SVT spoke to promised to return to their homeland.

– We will return to Syria and rebuild our country, says an Arab to SVT.

The leader of the Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Åkesson, however, is not convinced that all Syrians are equally happy about the al Qaeda rebels power takeover like the hundreds who celebrated at Sergels Torg. But those who celebrated the terrorist group's entry into Damascus should, according to the SD leader, go home.

– Unfortunately, there is much evidence that Syria has now emerged from the ashes of the fire because destructive Islamist forces are behind the change of power, he says in a statement on X.

– I note that there are groups that are happy about this here in Sweden. You should see this as a good opportunity to go home.

Last year there were 197,000 people born in Syria in Sweden. They are thus by far the largest immigrant group and 44,706 of them still lack Swedish citizenship, and can be sent home.

At the same time, Russian media state that Assad is now safe in Moscow. According to a source in the Kremlin, Russia has granted asylum to him and his family members.