The Refugee Who Warned Sweden
V24 Exclusive: Terror celebrations. Honor killings. Parallel societies. Former Yemeni Islamist and refugee Luai Ahmed tells us about Sweden’s immigration model.
Adam Starzynski
Jul 7, 2025 - 8:28 PM
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From Refugee to Whistleblower
Luai Ahmed is not a typical refugee. He is a former Islamist and outspoken activist from Yemen, who fled to Sweden after realizing that living openly as a gay man under Sharia law would mean a death sentence.
When Ahmed arrived in Sweden, he expected safety and a new beginning. Instead, he landed in a refugee camp that felt more like an extension of the Middle East. During the 2015 Charlie Hebdo terror attacks, fellow refugees celebrated. They baked cakes in honor of the terrorists. Ahmed thought Sweden was rescuing people from tyranny. Instead, it was importing the very ideologies that caused people like him to flee in the first place.
Sweden’s Parallel Societies
Ahmed does not believe Sweden is multicultural. Instead, he says it hosts parallel societies, dysfunctional enclaves with no connection to Swedish values. These communities often reject integration altogether. The idea that all cultures can coexist peacefully in the same space, he argues, is a fantasy that Sweden’s politicians clung to for too long.
One of the most chilling examples is the phenomenon of “balcony girls,” or "balkongflickor", young women thrown from balconies by their families for allegedly dishonoring them. For years, these cases were dismissed as suicides, blamed on depression or lack of sunlight. The truth, according to Ahmed, is rooted in imported honor culture.
In the refugee camps, Ahmed recalls frequent discussions where migrants would criticize Sweden while exploiting its benefits. Many admitted they hated the country — its weather, its people, even its freedoms but stayed because of the generous welfare system. In Sweden, one could become a citizen without learning the language, getting a job, or adopting the culture.
Ahmed points out that many so-called refugees vacation in the countries they supposedly fled from. According to UN norms, a refugee who voluntarily returns to their country of origin forfeits their protected status. Sweden, however, rarely enforces this.
Ahmed believes Swedish identity has been hollowed out. The state granted citizenship to anyone who stayed long enough, with no requirement to adopt Swedish culture or customs. Today, gangs of “Swedish citizens” roam the streets, speak no Swedish, and hold nothing but contempt for the country. He sees this as a betrayal of the nation’s native people.
He recalls living with an elderly Swedish woman who worked past retirement because her pension was insufficient. Meanwhile, Ahmed, a newcomer, received more support from the state while attending university. That moment crystallized for him the injustice of Sweden’s policies.
Defining Swedish Identity
Ahmed is not opposed to all immigration. He sees himself as a genuine refugee, someone who cannot safely return home. But he insists that Europe, and Sweden in particular, must distinguish between those genuinely fleeing persecution and those exploiting open borders.
He proposes a straightforward solution: strictly enforce existing refugee law. Refugees who voluntarily travel back to their country of origin without a compelling reason should have their protection status reviewed, and potentially revoked. This, he argues, would deter fraudulent asylum claims and encourage genuine refugees to integrate more fully, knowing that Sweden is their long-term home.
Today, Ahmed considers himself culturally Swedish. He speaks the language fluently, corrects Swedes on their grammar, and lives by Swedish norms. But he argues that Swedish identity is more than just a passport. There are ethnic Swedes, cultural Swedes, and citizens by paperwork. When anyone can be called “Swedish” regardless of loyalty or conduct, the concept loses all meaning.
Religious Extremism
This crisis of identity is deeply intertwined with another challenge Sweden faces: the rise of religious extremism within immigrant communities. Ahmed does not condone burning the Quran. He finds it unproductive and disrespectful. But he understands why some resort to it — to highlight the failure of integration and the dangerous consequences of importing hostile ideologies. These protests often lead to riots, attacks on police, and religious loyalty overriding respect for the law. In Ahmed’s view, this volatile reality is a direct consequence of Sweden’s policies.
Ahmed’s own story illustrates this complexity. As a child growing up in a Yemeni mosque, he was taught that Jews were evil and that Israel must be destroyed, hateful beliefs instilled by religious authorities. Yet, after arriving in Sweden, he began to unlearn this extremism, influenced by the country’s freedoms and openness. For him, Sweden was a place of personal transformation.
At the same time, Ahmed warns that this experience is not universal. Many radical ideologies still flourish in hidden corners of Swedish society. He criticizes Sweden for allowing extremist imams to operate in secrecy, often in unmonitored basements, without sufficient oversight. To tackle this, Ahmed praises efforts in Saudi Arabia and the UAE to crack down on extremist clerics and promote religious moderation. He calls for a similar re-education and overhaul of religious teachings in Muslim communities worldwide.
A Refugee’s Warning
Ahmed believes Sweden has already passed the point of no return in many areas. For many native Swedes, the streets of Stockholm and Malmö feel foreign. Politicians are starting to acknowledge problems that would have been taboo just five years ago, like rising crime and failed integration, but Ahmed sees their responses as too little, too late. The damage is already deep, and the solutions proposed are insufficient to reverse the decline.
If nothing changes, he warns, Sweden may cease to exist as a cohesive nation. The social experiment has failed. The values that once bound society together are now treated as optional or worse, as oppressive.
Ahmed’s story is rare. He is a refugee who has fully integrated, and embraced liberal democracy. But he knows he is the exception, not the rule. He urges Sweden and Europe to stop pretending all cultures are compatible. Some will destroy the very freedoms they are welcomed into. If the West wants to survive, it must draw clear lines, not just about who is allowed in, but about which values it will defend.
