‘They poison the population’: Swedish Muslims challenge far right ahead of election

The Guardian 10 september 2026

By: Ashifa Kassam

Ask-a-Muslim campaign takes to streets as country faces prospect of extremists entering highest levels of government

Not far from one of Scandinavia’s biggest shopping malls, Kashif Virk stood on the pavement, handing out flyers and smiling at those who passed by. On a cloudy Tuesday afternoon, the Swedish-born imam had taken to the street to invite people to ask him anything they had ever wanted to know about Islam.

For years, Sweden’s far right has peddled its own, distorted view of Islam, portraying it as being at odds with Swedish values. The Ask-a-Muslim – or Fråga en Muslim – campaign, conceived by Virk in 2017, was his way of fighting back.

With the help of dozens of volunteers from the Ahmadi Muslim community, the campaign had called in at more than 150 farmers markets, squares and city centres, inviting strangers to strike up a conversation in hopes of dispelling myths and shedding light on Islam.

“We have some radical parties and people are genuinely afraid about Islam,” said Virk. “Sometimes people get very rude. But most people in Sweden are lovely, friendly and interested – they want to learn more.”

Ahead of Sweden’s general election on Sunday, polls show the centre-left opposition has a narrow lead, suggesting that the rightwing minority-run coalition supported by the far-right Sweden Democrats could be ousted.

Such a result would not only be significant for the Scandinavian country; it could also reassure mainstream voters across Europe that far-right forces such as the Sweden Democrats or Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) – triumphant after its best showing in a state election last weekend – are not inevitably on the rise.

But even so, the Swedish polls have narrowed slightly in recent weeks, making many nervous, particularly as the right-leaning ruling coalition has for the first time said it would offer ministerial posts to the far right if it wins. Those who have borne the brunt of the far right’s time propping up the government worry that Sweden, long held up as a leading light when it comes to equality and freedom, may have been irrevocably changed, regardless of what happens on Sunday.

“It’s a kind of Pandora’s box that has been opened,” said Munir Niazi, who has long worked with Virk on the Ask-a-Muslim campaign.

During the government of the centre-right prime minister Ulf Kristersson, the far-right Sweden Democrats have used their leverage to steer policies on migration and crime, seizing on the spotlight to spread rhetoric linking the two and scapegoating migrants, Muslims and other minorities for all that ails the country.

The result had shifted Sweden’s national conversation to the right, said Niazi. “In the past four years, the biggest opposition party, the Social Democrats, have slowly adopted and even voted with the right wing on migration, on crime. In the near future, at least, we don’t see the country going back to the policies of the 80s and 90s.”

Virk nodded in agreement. “We see, unfortunately, that everybody plays the anti-Islam card when they need it.”