Mosques suspend staff after SVT review

The man who is filmed obliquely from below is clear. There is no problem marrying a man who is already married.

- You come here with her on a Saturday at 6:30, he says.

The man was until recently one of several advisers and prayer leaders at the Stenhagen Mosque in Uppsala. But after SVT's reporters confronted the mosque's board with the man's statements, he has had to leave his post.

Mission Review's program "Imams' marriage advice" is published on Wednesday, but has already caused reactions. In addition to the advisor in Stenhagen, an imam who worked in Uppsala's largest mosque and an advisor in Örebro's mosque have been suspended. All have said they can help married men get married a second time, even though it is illegal.

Sanna Klinghoffer is one of the reporters behind the program.

- No one who visits a mosque should have to receive this advice, she says.

In the show, several male reporters pose as married men who want a second wife. With the help of a hidden camera, the answers they get are filmed in 15 mosques in Sweden.

In six places, the men get the nob. The mosques follow the law - no one can marry without a so-called barrier test.

In Halmstad, in Örebro and in the two mosques in Uppsala, the staff say yes to marrying the men. In Örebro, the adviser later retracts his statement, and claims that it was a misunderstanding. In total, the men receive either a yes or a referral to a person who can help them in nine of the cases.

It is not possible to register marriages with more than one person in Sweden. So what is the significance of these weddings?

- If something is forbidden in Sweden, we must stick to it. This is the attitude that the Muslim organizations themselves have outwardly - that you stick to the rules of the country where you live. But it's obvious that you don't do that, says Sanna Klinghoffer.

Mission Granskning's reportage is not the first to examine mosques from the inside. In 2012, the program "Advice of the Imams" was broadcast, where a woman was asked to seek support from an imam. The woman said that her husband wanted more wives, that he beat her and that he demanded sex. Several imams then said that polygamy was allowed, that the woman should not deny the man sex and that she should not go to the police.

Sanna Klinghoffer says that she would have liked to ask the same questions again, but that it would have been impossible.

- That review is fresh in the minds of many. If we had sent women who asked exactly the same questions, we would have been exposed in a second, she says.

The counselor at the Stenhagen Mosque is one of several interviewees who give tips on how the man seeking support can control his wife or children. The recordings arouse strong feelings among several Swedish Muslims who participate in the program.

- Are there cavemen like this in Sweden today? says Nalin Baksi, psychiatric nurse and former Member of Parliament for the Social Democrats.

- It is us Muslims who pay the price, says Bahareh Andersson, who was one of the women who asked the imams for advice in the Task Review program in 2012.

Sanna Klinghoffer says that the tough climate for Muslims in Sweden – with Koran burnings and attacks on mosques – risks standing in the way of important reviews.

- I think there is a fear of the touch to do these jobs. But then you let down vulnerable women who are affected by this type of religious representatives, she says.