Swedish Kurd attacked for hanging Israeli flag

(Sweden) - A 38-year-old Swedish-Kurd was assaulted with bottles and a metal pipe last week in the Swedish city of Malmo after displaying an Israeli flag from his kitchen window.

Ismail Aryan Babak, a Kurd born in northern Iraq before moving with his family to Iran, said that someone first smashed the window where he had hanged the flag. When he went out to enquire, he was beaten by several people waiting outside his home.

Babak told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that he likes Israel, and that is why he had the flag.

“First they said to me 'You Kurds should not have your own state'. Then another one asked why I had the flag," Babak told Aftonbladet. “They had an iron pipe and bottles,” he told the paper. He was hit twice on the head with a bottle then beaten on the legs with the metal pipe.

Babak is originally from a village in northern Iraq that had a population of Jews, who have emigrated from Iraq in large numbers due to threats and attacks.

"I like Jews and Israel. For me it is no stranger than hanging a Swedish flag in the window," he told the Swedish SvD Nyheter.

In addition, Babak is very active on social media networks against the Iranian regime. One reason for the attack may have been his opposition to the theocratic regime in Iran, he said.

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