A Swedish artist who angered Muslims by depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a dog was assaulted as furious protesters interrupted his university lecture about the limits of free speech.
Lars Vilks said that “a man ran up and threw himself over me. I was head-butted and my glasses were broken” as he was delivering a lecture at Uppsala University, breaking Vilks’ glasses but leaving him uninjured.
Uppsala police spokesman Jonas Eronen later said that the attacker was stopped by officers before he could get to Vilks.
The physical contact Vilks described probably happened when police in civilian clothes evacuated the artist “in a brusque manner,” Eronen said.
SUSPECTS
A man and a woman were detained on suspicion of violence against police while another man was held for disturbing public order, he said. All were just under 20 years old.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the attacker was among the three detained.
A video clip of the incident by a Swedish newspaper showed police using pepper spray and batons to hold off an angry crowd shouting “God is great” in Arabic after Vilks was escorted out of the lecture hall.
Vilks has faced numerous threats over his controversial drawing of Mohammed with a dog’s body, but Tuesday’s incident was the first physical assault directed against him.
Earlier this year US investigators said Vilks was the target of an alleged murder plot involving Colleen LaRose, an American woman who dubbed herself “Jihad Jane,” and who now faces life in prison.
She has pleaded not guilty.
Vilks said a group of about 15 people had been shouting and trying to interrupt the lecture before the incident at the university in Uppsala, about 70km north of Stockholm.
Some of them stormed toward the front of the room after the attack and clashed with security guards as Vilks was pulled away into a separate room, he said, describing the scene as “complete chaos.”
HOMOSEXUALITY
Uppsala University spokeswoman Pernilla Bjork said Vilks was showing an excerpt from a film by an Iranian artist about Islam and homosexuality that had been banned from YouTube when the commotion started.
“It was about when Muslims and Mohammed are represented in homosexual situations,” said Anders Montelius, a 23-year-old student who attended the lecture.
“Some people started shouting, things happened really fast,” he said.
About 10 to 15 seconds later it erupts. A guy from the front row gets up and sets upon Vilks. Several others followed this man. There was commotion and police pepper-sprayed a couple of people,” Montelius said.
“When the university person responsible for the lecture announced that the lecture was discontinued, there were cheers and chants in Arabic,” he said.
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