Birthday balloons or ‘Islamic State’ propaganda?
Swedish police take down girl’s 21st birthday balloons after they were misconstrued as ISIL symbol.
Swedish police turned up at student Sarah Ericsson’s door on Monday, after receiving reports that her window was displaying a symbol of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). It turns out Ericsson put up balloons shaped like the number “21” for her birthday, and a passerby saw the reverse image, confusing it for the letters “IS” for “Islamic State”, and subsequently called the police.
Some thought the balloons looked like the number “12”, but the police pointed out that it almost looked like “IS” and asked Ericsson’s boyfriend to remove them from the window.
Ericsson noted that they removed the balloons immediately, and said: “Extremism should always be taken seriously…I will never forget my 21st birthday!”