‘They poison the population’: how the far right changed Sweden’s conversation

Kashif Virk, an imam in Malmö, is seeking to challenge people’s ideas about Islam with his Ask-a-Muslim campaign. Photograph: Emma Larsson/The Guardian

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.