Sunday afternoon, the Swedish artist Lars Vilks died in a traffic accident.
Vilks and two police officers died when their car collided with a truck on the E4 in Markaryd in Sweden, Swedish police confirmed in a press release.
The death has made headlines in the world press, great grief in, among other things, the art community in Sweden and criticism of how he was treated in his home country.
The Swedish Minister of Culture Amanda Lind called the accident “extremely tragic”.
Celebrated the death
But not everyone takes the news seriously.
Indian Sunni leader, activist and president of Raza Academy, which works to promote Islamic faith in India, Saeed Noori Sahab, celebrated the death by handing out candy, writes India TV news.
“Allah has now burned him to death in a car accident,” he said Nirmal news.
Lars Vilks is best known for a drawing in which he in 2007 placed the head of the Prophet Muhammad on a dog, an animal that according to Islam is unclean.
This has made him an object of hatred for Muslims all over the world, and he therefore lived under constant police protection.
Swedish Daily News has examined the comment fields in connection with the death news in the Turkish and Arab media. They found that the tone of the comments is marked by hatred and scorn.
Lars Vilk’s death in a collision
– Burn
Also on Twitter, a hashtag is trending where Twitter users “celebrate” the cartoonist’s death.
Svenske Dagens Nyheter writes that a Facebook post about the news, published by the Egyptian news site Screen Mix, has received 21,000 reactions – many of whom have printed clay emoji.
One user writes in the comments section that “he burned to death and he will burn again after death as a punishment for insulting the prophet” and another writes “no one could save him from God’s punishment”.
URBAN: Editor Vebjørn Selbekk reacts strongly to comments about Lars Vilks’ death. Photo: Heiko Junge / NTB scanpix
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– Shaking
– I have seen the same reactions. They are not only in Sweden, but also in Norway. I’m shocked at how someone can rejoice in someone’s tragic death. For me, it shows that extreme Islamism is characterized in our Nordic countries as well, says Vebjørn Selbekk, editor of the Christian newspaper Dagen, to Dagbladet.
– I find it repulsive that many rejoice at his grave, says the editor.
Selbekk himself experienced death threats when he, as editor of the Christian newspaper Magazinet, printed facsimiles of Jyllands-Posten’s caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.
– It is a reunion of the same abyss I looked down into 15 years ago during the caricature fight. It is the same wave of religious hatred that exists out there as then, he says.
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– Bloody reality
Director of the foundation Fritt Ord, Knut Olav Åmås, is not surprised by the hateful reactions.
– That these reactions come is not surprising, but it is scary. It shows how necessary it is that Lars Vilks and Flemming Rose, who published the Mohammed drawings in Jyllands-Posten, have needed protection around the clock in all these years. It also shows that the caricature controversy is still a bloody reality.
SCARY: Fritt Ord director Knut Olav Åmås. Photo: Håkon Mosvold Larsen / NTB
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The caricature fight began in 2005 and there are perhaps many who do not realize the seriousness of it still going on, Åmås believes.
– During these 15 years, the public’s appreciation of freedom of expression has increased, but the one that applies on a principled level. There is a strong fear and dread when something becomes concrete, such as when Vilks draws Muhammad. There are hardly any satire drawings or art made that has anything to do with Muhammad anymore. So Vilks was one of the last. The threats and terror have worked – even after the massacre of Charlie Hebdo.
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