May 14th, 2020 Religious Persecution in Sweden Begins With the Destruction of Fawad Haider’s Car Window
The British citizen Fawad Haider was driving with two British citizens in the Örebro region when they were stopped during a traffic control. They were asked to produce their identification documents, which they did. The police officer then asked them to open the door of the car and step out of the vehicle. When they asked to know the reason, the police officer became aggressive and smashed in their window. He then took all three British members to the police station. One of them was detained for several hours. He asked for food and to use the bathroom but was denied either. Their car was left unattended with an open window and vulnerable to theft at any given time. All three men were released without any charges.
September 10, 2020 SWAT Team Raid
In one of the largest scale scenes of religious persecution in Sweden, On the 10th of September, more than twenty police men, over seven police vehicles and a group of more than five SWAT team officers in full combat gear raided the headquarters of our organization at Sävsjön 21 in 71293 Hällefors.
Families with children were present on the property that day. They reported being scared and shocked at the sight of armed men storming the premises. The members of the congregation had never experienced anything similar. The officers forbade them from leaving the premises. When some members did not want to allow them permission to enter the property without first showing their warrant, the officers pushed their way through and used force to enter.
Consequently, some of the parents were unable to pick up their children from school on time. Children under the age of 8 were left unattended on the school premises for hours and had no way to get home.
To this day it is unclear why they raided the property, even bringing a SWAT team along. Of course, they did not find anything illegal.
November 18th, 2020 Fire Inspector Police Escort
Five police officers appeared at the entrance of the property in Berglasgarden to accompany Fire Safety Inspectors. They violently pushed their way into the property while the peaceful members of the religion were recording them. They insisted on entering the property for a fire inspection without an appointment, bringing five police officers along as escort.
January 11, 2022 Raid on Kyllervägen 7 and Bokvägen 9
On the 11th of January, 2022, three police cars and one undercover police car raided the houses of Guillaume Ballet at Kyllervägen 7 and Ramazan Demirovic at Bokvägen 9 in 71232 Hällefors. The officers had a warrant to search both of these houses on grounds that are unknown.
In Kyllervägen 7 they found British citizen Ghazala Syed, a female member of our religion, with her two mentally challenged children. She was staying over at the house with her children for a visit. Seven officers searched every corner of the house and scared the disabled children, only to once again find nothing illegal.
The same seven officers went on to search the house of another member living at Bokvägen 9. They found two women and children under the age of eight. The house owner and US-citizen Mejreme Demirovic, who was present in the house at the time, reports having been extremely frightened by the sight of seven police officers storming her house. After the incident she did not want to stay at home alone, but asked that one of her family members stay with her in the house at all times.
April 11, 2022 Kalsoom Shah and her Daughter Duae Zahra
On the 11th of April, 2022 Kalsoom Shah and her daughter Duae Zahra, were invited to the Örebro police station under false pretense. Mrs. Shah was told that she was invited to be questioned as a witness in an assault case that she had witnessed in August 2021. The letter she received asked her to bring her daughter Duae Zahra along as an additional witness.
Both women made use of their right to bring legal counsel to their interrogation yet once they arrived at the scene the officers insisted to separate mother and daughter and did not allow their lawyer, Joakim Sörmdal, to be present during the interrogation. In fact, they intentionally separated 17 year old Duae Zahra from her mother to ask her discriminatory questions. They asked her if she was married off illegally, held against her will by her parents or our organization, or limited in her freedoms. She was even offered a secret way to leave her family. Duae Zahra asserted that she was not held against her will, which exposed the entire operation to be unnecessary and once again based on prejudice.
At the same time, Kalsoom Shah was questioned separately. Her lawyer was ordered to leave and officers tried to interrogate Mrs. Shah for almost one hour without legal counsel present, even though she repeatedly insisted on her right to only speak in the presence of a lawyer.
German citizen Caroline Hören accompanied the two women. The investigating officer asked to question her on the spot, without her being invited previously. Only when Ms. Hören called her lawyer and was informed that such questioning would be illegal in Sweden, the female investigator stopped further attempts to question her.
June 14, 2022 Stopping of Guillaume Ballet, Ali Haider and Lela Lotfi
On the 14th of June, 2022, Swiss citizen Guillaume Ballet, British citizen Ali Haider and Egyptian citizen Lela Lotfi Abdelrahman were stopped on the road between Hällefors and our headquarters at Sävsjön 21. Two undercover cars, two police vans and one motorcycle ambushed the group. Once again the location of the traffic stop (a country road with little traffic) and the disproportionate number of police vehicles suggests that the officers were planning to stop vehicles that transported members of the organization. This was also supported by the fact that a police motorcycle was sighted circling the organization's headquarters only shortly afterwards.
The driver of the car, Guillaume Ballet, was ordered to get out of the car. When his phone rang, he tried to get it out of his pocket, but several officers ran towards Mr. Ballet. They slammed him against the police van, handcuffed him and transported Mr.Ballet to the police station in Hällefors, then later to Örebro police station. They also confiscated his phone during the entire procedure. They did not allow him to roll up the windows of his car, or lock the car. His vehicle was left behind unattended for more than six hours and could have been stolen and damaged at any time. They forced him to do a blood and urine test, then put Mr. Ballet in a cell with a toilet that did not flush. After several hours, he told the officers that he was hungry, but was not given any food. For the entire duration the officers were mocking him. He repeatedly informed them that he did not want to answer any questions without his lawyer present, yet they applied psychological pressure on him to talk and did not assign him a lawyer until several hours later. The Swedish lawyer assigned to him by the police confirmed that he had no rights as a Swiss citizen when being suspected of a crime.
The police also detained the second passenger, Ali Haider. A police officer forcefully opened the door of the car and told Ali Haider to exit, while he had done nothing wrong. They arrested him, searched him from head to toe, even in his private area, and shouted at him. They did not allow him to take his phone even though Mr. Haider repeatedly asked for it. They forcefully transported him to Hällefors, where they tried to interrogate him for several hours without his lawyer present, even though he requested one. Then they transported him to Örebro, where they humiliated him by making him strip completely naked and bend forward. After another 30 minutes in a cell he was informed that the charges against him had been dropped. He had been arrested and humiliated while being completely innocent. He was released onto the streets of Örebro, 1.5 hours away from his home in Hällefors. As the police had not allowed him to take his belongings, he had no phone on him to contact anyone to pick him up and had no money to buy a bus ticket home.
The drug tests for both Guillaume Ballet and Ali Haider came back negative.
The third passenger, another member of the faith by the name of Lela Abdelrahman Lotfi, tried to record what was happening. They attempted to snatch the phone from her and a female officer positioned herself to block the view. They even told her that filming the police was not allowed and a crime. After they took the two fellow passengers, they left her alone in a field 11km from her accommodation.
Both Ali Haider and Guillaume Ballet complained to their respective embassies the same day.
June 15, 2022 Stopping of Fawad Haider
The next day, on the 15th of June, another member of our religion by the name of Fawad Haider was followed and stopped by an undercover police car in the city of Hällefors. He was informed that he was suspected of being under the influence of narcotics. They questioned him but he made use of his legal right to remain silent, as previously advised by his lawyer. Fawad Haider was then arrested on the basis of driving the vehicle with a British drivers license and taken to the local Hällefors police station. The basis of his arrest was completely illegal, as Swedish law permits the unlimited use of a British drivers license and therefore the charges were dropped. Fawad Haider was taken to the local clinic and forced to take a drug test. The results of the drug test were negative. He was innocent.
29th of April 2023
To our surprise, about half a year after the last AROPL members had left Sweden, Sverige Radio released an interview with the head of the Police Intelligence Service in Bergslagen, Mr. Per Lundbäck.
In the first part of the interview, released on the 29th of April 2023, Per Lundbäck revealed that the rejection of visa applications of members of the faith was a joint effort by the Migrationsverket, Skatteverket, Kronofogden and the Swedish police to expel and shut down the religion, using the migration route as a pretext. It stated:
After the police, along with several other authorities, conducted an operation against a religious “sect” outside Hällefors, 69 individuals received negative decisions from the Swedish Migration Agency.
The police had been monitoring the organization, but it was only during a joint operation with multiple authorities that they managed to shut it down.
The police wanted to conduct a raid on the headquarters in Bergslagen but were worried it would turn violent.
They had received police reports that AROPL was violent and dangerous, but never found evidence to substantiate the claim.
The statements above are alarming on many levels and raise grave concerns about institutional oppression, systematic racism, transparency, accountability, and ethics of public institutions.
They are a confession by the Swedish authorities that the grounds for rejecting residency applications were solely on the basis of religion, which means the state admits that it has intentionally discriminated against members of the religion and denied them visas for no reason other than their religious affiliation.
The statements above are also a confession by the Swedish authorities that their decision to target a religious group, conduct unwarranted raids on their property, and reject their visa applications, was based on false accusations and character defamation that were never substantiated in any court of law. It is a violation of the presumption of innocence which is guaranteed in the European Convention of Human Rights, Art. 6, Section 2: “Everyone charged with a criminal offense shall be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law”.
12th of May 2023
On the 12th of May, 2023, the same Swedish State Radio published a second article titled: “The setup of the sect involved starting businesses to enable its members to come to Sweden”.
Written in the article was the following:
The religious sect in Sävsjön, located outside of Hällefors, utilized frivolous companies and sham employments to allow its members to stay in Sweden.
The sect is said to have operated at least three businesses that, through sham employments, enabled 70 members and their families to reside in the country.
The salary that the members were supposed to receive was just above the limit that exists for labor immigration, but hardly any money was actually paid out.
"Companies are often a disguise for something else, such as money laundering, or to hire people on paper but, in reality, the people do nothing," says Per Lundbäck, head of police intelligence operations.
It is important to emphasize that the AROPL members opened companies in cooperation with each other to build a life in Sweden. This endeavor was destroyed by the above mentioned joint operation and the members of AROPL eventually got tired of the harassment by the Swedish Police, Migrationsverket and Skatteverket and shut down their operations in Sweden.
As mentioned above, the companies in question were genuine businesses that were reported on by local Swedish newspapers and had genuine activities.
The Swedish authorities involved had no proof that the companies were not genuine, other than their suspicions and prejudice.
The final sentence of the interview is particularly alarming: "Indeed, no authorities participating in the joint operation wanted a religious sect in the area, particularly one that was violent. We don't want them at all, especially not in our local community."
On December 26, 2023, an article about the organization was published in Expressen. The article indicates that the municipality and the police viewed the religion as a sect. Per Lundbäck stated: "We may throw around the term 'sect' a bit loosely, but they had a religious appearance, secluded themselves, and were very closed. They absolutely did not want any oversight from the outside world." Furthermore, Per Lundbäck stated in the article: "Per Lundbäck says that the police also suspected several crimes, including money laundering and human trafficking. It hasn't been proven, but several authorities decided to join forces and try to shut down the operations at Bergslagsgården."
No one in the group has been notified of suspicion of money laundering or human trafficking, and no evidence supporting such suspicions has been provided by the police, even after several requests. None of the members have been involved in or sentenced for the above mentioned or for any crimes in Sweden or the EU.
Per Lundbäck also admitted in the article that the common goal of the authorities was for the religious sect, as they perceived it, not to remain. He stated: "It doesn't matter if they (the organization's members) are ultimately convicted of crimes or not, we wanted to get rid of them from there."
members of AROPL worked and contributed to life in the local community, built relationships with them and sought to provide their skills and abilities in doing so. - this is the response they get?? intentionally discriminated against members of the religion and denied them visas for no reason other than their religious affiliation.