“Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.”

Åkesson: Close mosque and strip imam’s citizenship

September 30, 2025

The Sweden Democrats’ (SD) Jimmie Åkesson believes that the imam in Kristianstad who preached about beating women should have his citizenship taken away. He also wants to close the mosque itself. The SD is reportedly now pressing the government to tighten legislation in order to make it easier to revoke citizenship.

“Those types of mosques should be closed, and we should also tear them down or use them for something else, Jimmie Åkesson tells Riks.

The SD leader comments on the case of Imam Saleh Abouelenen, who has been forced to leave his position in the Al Rahma Mosque in Kristianstad after a well-known sermon about when men are allowed to beat their wives. Such imams should be deported, according to Åkesson.

“It is absolutely horrible that people with the status of an imam in the Muslim civil society can express themselves like that and still be in the country, which they naturally should not be. And that the mosque also has the potential to continue carrying out its activity. That cannot be allowed.”

Saleh Abouelenen has been given Swedish nationality. But the SD wants to push through a change in the constitution that makes it possible to deport, for example, terrorists or persons who have a connection to terror or extremism.

“Today, it is not possible, but we think it should be possible,” says Jimmie Åkesson.

According to Expressen, after the incident in Kristianstad, the SD is pressing the government to go beyond the announced legislation and enable the revocation of Swedish citizenship for Islamists, also on grounds of immorality.

The government is preparing a model to be able to revoke citizenship for serious criminality or if citizenship was obtained based on false information. But the SD wants to include more grounds.

“If you say, as the government ministers do, that this is terrible, then you must also do something,” says SD leader [Ludvig] Aspling to Expressen.

He continues:

“But what we should do now is discuss what we will do in the next term. The Sweden Democrats will make a statement of their wish that more people will be caught up when it comes to the stripping of citizenship.”