When an investigative journalist at Doku Publicister asked me if I would like to take pictures during an interview with a defector from Salafism, I did not know what it was.

Salafism is a highly conservative direction within Islam. For militant Salafists or jihadists, armed struggle is a religious duty. In the West, “jihad” is used to refer to “holy war” to defend or spread Islam.

The man I portrayed with my camera was the first defector from Sweden’s violence-prone Islamist circles to speak out publicly. Nowadays, he calls Salafism a cancer.

In addition to the very in-depth interview on Doku.se, major news media, such as Swedish Television (SVT) and Expressen, published some of my pictures.