Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2011 Gothenburg terrorism plot


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Ultimately, everybody except one editor did not think the article could be salvaged by regular editing. , if you want the article saved to draft space so you can rewrite it as you suggested, let me know. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  16:02, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

2011 Gothenburg terrorism plot

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WP:NOTNEWS at it's finest (or it's worst). This "terror plot" is actually a no-terror, no-conspiracy to commit murder incident. According to the article itself and this source, the men involved were found not guilty of terror and a conspiracy, leaving an article based on minor charges of possession of weapons and major BLP concerns. I don't see a reason to merge any of the material since most of it is outdated and there is no indication of a WP:LASTING impact. This article was created in 2015; the men were found not guilty in 2012 so clearly something was missed when this was pushed to mainspace. TheGracefulSlick (talk) 08:44, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * What you missed was the revisiting of this plotted attack in 2015.(see Note below)E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:54, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Terrorism-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 09:50, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sweden-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 09:50, 12 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete Non-notable event, and no lasting impact. There was some attention, but it faded when the not guilty verdict came. If the article is kept, at the very least per WP:BLP the title should be changed. We can't, in Wikipedia's voice, say that it was a terrorist plot when the courts have aquitted the suspects. Sjö (talk) 10:07, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom and Sjö. — MShabazz Talk/Stalk 12:22, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep because it happened and is still discussed; or Redirect to Lars Vilks, or to Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy, orRetitle and rewrite this article to cover the remarkably long series of violent attacks and assassination attempts directed at Vilks as per WP:PRESERVE. I prefer Keep, not only because this happened and got international coverage, and because we do have Category:Failed terrorist attempts and because it is user-friendly to keep article that are usefully linked from a number of other articles.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:07, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * since this "happened", why is the Locale apparently lying about these men being deemed innocent of such charges in a court of law? Why would we put this in a category of failed terror attacks when it wasn't an attempted act of terror?TheGracefulSlick (talk) 17:20, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Slick, after the attempt to assassinate Vilks in the 2015 Copenhagen shootings and the Charlie Hebdo shooting Europeans began to view the threat of Islamist terrorism differently. To be sure, the perps - or, if you prefer, the young men carrying knives when arrested on suspicion of intending to use the knives they had brought to the gallery opening in Gothenburg intending to murder artist Lars Vilks on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks  - have been acquitted.  After all, in 2011, the idea of young Swedish men stabbing someone to death for insulting The Prophet seemed absurd to many people.  The thing is, after the horrors of 2015 in Paris and Copenhagen, many journalists and quite a few Swedish voters stopped believing that the court that acquitted the Gothenburg plotters reached the right verdict.  Therefore the incident is now remembered as a failed Islamism-inspired assassination attempt. Yet another foiled plot to attack a Western cultural event, like the Louvre machete attack.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:34, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * and is this according to you? Do you have reliable sources that prove these men indeed did have intentions to stab Vilkson to death? Are the opinions of a few "journalists" apparently enough to call this attempted terror and ignore the investigation and ruling of a court of law? How would you rename this article to avoid BLP concerns: "2011 Gothenburg non-terror or murder plot (but we think it's terrorism anyway)"?TheGracefulSlick (talk) 17:50, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Something simple like Alleged 2011 Gothenburg terrorism plot.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:54, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for not addressing all the other questions to focus on the sarcastic one. Per your rationale, we should also recreate the article for this non-incident as "Alleged 2017 Berlin terrorist plot" since, you know, "it happened". Your suggestion that this still was a terror plot, despite complete lack of evidence to support it, crosses the border into WP:FRINGE. Just because you don't like the fact that the men are found innocent does not mean you can insinuate otherwise.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 07:14, 13 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Note that this incident came to renewed public attention because the target of the plot was Lars Vilks, target of the 2015 Copenhagen shootings and "inspiration" for the 2010 Stockholm bombings. E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:54, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom and others, legally deemed to be not terrorism and consequently not a plot. A brief (neutrally phrased) mention might be justified on Vilks or related page. 2011 Gothenburg terrorism plot non-story?Pincrete (talk) 10:11, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. Wikipedia is not news, and some people not being involved in a plot means that any limited relevance to Wikipedia is swiftly over. Any argument for notability would have to justify how such details are relevant. MPS1992 (talk) 02:30, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Whoa  news flash  Note not only that coverage has been ongoing, starting with harsh criticism of Goteborg D.A. for prosecuting these innocent men, but that the same newspapers - including the pro immigration, ardently multi-cultural, left-wing Aftonbladet - but that in 2016 there was a segue to mea culpa mode after reporting that one of the perps is in Syria fighing with ISIS.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:54, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Aftonbladet is a major Swedish daily - think of it as a Swedish veersion of The Guardian. There is a name switch going on as perp's commitment to Islam increases, and his name shifts; The Local was calling him "Abdul" in 2012, but in 2016  Aftonbladet calls him Salar {Salm) Mahmood.  Here:  is a sort of group  blog that  I wouldn't quote on the page but that ties the names/bio togher to some extent, and links to more sources.  I'll try to get back to this.  But the story is ongoing and NOT the simple "acquital asserted by Nom and other editors.   Note for example, that the Appeals court DID NOT acquit on all charges, rather, unable to prove "intent to murder" ("intent" is always a tough thing to prove at trial,) it CONVICTED the 3 of weapons violations.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:17, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Of course you you wouldn't quote that baloney (I'm being polite) on Wikipedia, because FrontPageMag isn't a reliable source for facts and possibly not even for its reliably Islamophobic opinions. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 04:48, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Note also the Bellevue Mosque connection.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:32, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Whoa, weapons violations? Did they also catch them for jaywalking during their arrest? The story about one of these innocent men (of this non-plot at least) joining ISIS in Syria is a completely separate issue. You are simply piling on side stories. Now we can name the article "2011 Gothenburg non-story and completely separate event in Syria".TheGracefulSlick (talk) 22:09, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
 * They nailed Al Capone for tax evasion. But he's better known for the crime he was acquitted of: the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Even if a court acquits the accused, the crime can still be notable when, as here, press coverage is ongoing.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:14, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I point out that this plot has continued to be garner WP:SIGCOV in WP:RS.  A case of a legal decisions becoming notorious for exposing flaws in a legal system.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:13, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Not sure it's relevant to the discussion, but just to clarify one thinkg – Aftonbladet is a major Swedish tabloid. It holds the record for number of times being criticized by the Swedish Press Council for not adhering to good journalistic practice. Now, this doesn't mean it's the Daily Mail – it's far better than that – but among the major Swedish newspapers, Aftonbladet and Expressen are in a category of their own when it comes to a reputation of not checking their sources if it would come in the way of a good story. It has the most influential editorial page of the left-leaning Swedish newspapers, though. /Julle (talk) 23:55, 17 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete -- a minor event of no lasting significance and really a 2011 Gothenburg terrorism scare. Of course it generated coverage at the time, but Wikipedia is not a newspaper to list such events. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:59, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Except that "lasting significance" is gauged by the sort of ongoing coverage in major media that this incident has received.E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:02, 17 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete Minor event of little lasting significance. Per Sjö. It deserves an updated mention in the Lars Vilks article, mentioning the outcome of the trials, but not an article of its own. /Julle (talk) 23:55, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Proper target for redirect is Lars Vilks, article Lars Vilks details a series of attacks and assassination attempts targeting Vilks.  This title is a useful search term.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:05, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * No it's not. It's a misleading search term because there was no terror plot these men were found guilty of.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 20:21, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Actually, redirects are not judged on NPOV but usefulness. That's why R from non-neutral name exists. The question should only be: Is this a likely search term? The answer seems to be yes. Regards  So Why  09:47, 20 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Potentially relevant, by the way, is that there was an old AfD discussion about this subject that wasn't linked to from the talk page or here as it didn't have the same title (and the article wasn't kept): Articles for deletion/2011 failed Gothenburg terrorist attack. /Julle (talk) 01:50, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Interesting. But do note that standards re:keeping terrorist plots and failed attacks have changed since 2011. See these recent AFDs with many of the same editors and the same arguments as were made in 2011, (Plus, of course,  this page shows years of ongoing coverage, which distinguishes it form the 2011 page.) : Articles for deletion/2017 Notre Dame attack, Articles for deletion/Kundby case, Articles for deletion/June 2017 Champs-Élysées car ramming attack, Articles for deletion/2016 Malmö ISIS-related arson, Articles for deletion/2016 Balkans terrorism plot  and Note that  many recently created articles on failed terrorist attempts and plots are not taken to AFD at all: 2016 Düsseldorf terrorism plot,  2016 Ludwigshafen bombing plot, 2016 Chemnitz terrorism plot, and the page that is the closest parallel to this page the Curtis Culwell Center attack.E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:06, 20 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Surely there is sufficient notability here for a Redirect/Merge, as I suggested above.E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:06, 20 July 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.