Swedish authorities accused Iranian intelligence services on Tuesday, September 24, of having hacked an SMS operator in 2023 to send messages encouraging people to “avenge” desecrators of the Koran.
About 15,000 messages “calling for revenge against the perpetrators of the burning of the Koran” had been sent in the summer of 2023, echoing a wave of desecrations of the holy book of Islam, according to a press release from the prosecutor. It was about “creating divisions in Swedish society”. “Preliminary investigation shows that it was the Iranian state, through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), that hacked the data of a Swedish company that operates a major SMS service.”detailed prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist in the press release.
“The investigation allowed us to establish the identity of the Iranian hackers who perpetrated this serious data breach”Ljungqvist added. However, the investigation is now closed due to the impossibility of accusing the Iranian services.
Prevalence of freedom of expression
Relations between Sweden and several Middle Eastern countries deteriorated in the summer of 2023, when protests broke out in these countries against several book burnings carried out in the Nordic country, in particular at the initiative of Salwan Momika, an Iraqi refugee.
The Swedish government then condemned the burning of the holy book on its soil, while recalling the predominance of freedom of expression and assembly.
The Swedish embassy in Iraq had been attacked twice before, and during the second attack a fire was started on its grounds.
Sweden and Iran have also had tense relations for several years, particularly since the arrest in Sweden in 2019 of a former Iranian prosecutor, Hamid Nouri, and his sentencing to life imprisonment for his role in the mass executions of opponents ordered by Tehran in 1988. He was handed over to Iran in June 2024 in exchange for the release of two Swedes, including that of an EU diplomat.
