GATESTONE INSTITUTE
Sweden's Christmas Present: New Laws Curbing Free Speech
by Timon Dias
December 22, 2014 at 4:00 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4972/sweden-free-speech
The problem is that within the extremely politically correct culture of Sweden, questions, insults and criticism are often viewed as one and the same.
"Swedes who disagree... risk being labeled racist, fascist, even Nazi." — Mikael Jalving, Author of Absolute Sweden.
One might well ask how Swedes would react if other countries decided to determine their borders.
Furthermore, no one seems to have asked what kind of place this new state of Palestine might be: a free, democratic and transparent society like Sweden, or another rogue state, or eventually even another Islamist state.
Apart from South Africa, Sweden now has the highest number of rapes (that are reported); based on unofficial accounts from policemen and social workers, about 75% of them are committed by Muslims.
Sweden, during its September 2014 parliamentary election, voted in a new government. But whom exactly did the people of Sweden elect to run their new government? In a recent (albeit un-sourced) blog, Ilya Meyer, the deputy chair of the Sweden-Israel Friendship Association, shed some light on the backgrounds and motivations of some of Sweden's new cabinet ministers. A few individuals stand out.
The Minister for Housing and Urban Development is the Turkish Swede Mehmet Kaplan, who was aboard the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara, of the Turkish extremist Humanitarian Relief Foundation, when it tried to break through the legal Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza coastline. Israel had established the naval blockade in 2007 in response to the smuggling of weapons into Gaza to arm the terrorist group Hamas, which is outspokenly dedicated to exterminating Israel.
Kaplan has also stated that young European Muslims who are joining the "Islamic State" [IS] in Syria and Iraq are nothing to worry about, and are just similar to Swedish fighters who joined the Finns in WW2 to fight the Soviet Union. He has also claimed at the same time that the main reason young European Muslims are joining the Islamic State is "Western Islamophobia."
Sweden's Minister of Education, Gustav Fridolin, was arrested in Israel in 2003 for allegedly blocking the construction of Israel's security barrier in the West Bank, where he has engaged in protests alongside the International Solidarity Movement – an organization that "recognizes armed struggle as the right of Palestinian Arabs."
Sweden's Minister of Interior, Ardalan Shekarabi, who is also responsible for Domestic Law and Order, is a former illegal immigrant from Iran who defied a Swedish deportation order in 1989 by going into hiding. Shekarabi is also known for embezzling state funds for an integration project to aid in his reelection as leader of the Social-Democratic Youth Party.
Sweden's Minister for Culture and Democracy, Alice Bah Kuhnke is a hard-line feminist known for threatening to cut off funds to organizations that oppose honor killings if any of those funds went to men working against honor killings. As a feminist, it seems as if she wants only women to receive these funds.
These are not merely parliamentarians, these are ministers.
Not surprisingly, one of the first actions of this new government was the recognition of the Palestinian State, a move considered as illegal as it was odd: the Palestinians do not yet meet the requirements for statehood, and seem not even to have agreed on even what the borders of their state should be.
Furthermore, no one seems to have asked what kind of place this new state would be: a free, democratic and transparent society like Sweden, or one that might, in fact, be another rogue state, or eventually even another Islamist state. Nonetheless, Swedish MP Hillevi Larsson, as opposed to the Palestinians themselves, seems to have no doubt about what the borders of "Palestine" should be. One might well ask how Swedes would react if other countries decided to determine their borders.
In just two months, this government fell — new elections take place this March — but not before bestowing on the people of Sweden a second measure, far less publicized, and that will come into effect this Christmas. The new measure is designed to make it easier to prosecute those who offend immigrants, immigration policies, LGBT people and politicians online.
As Swedish MP Andreas Norlén, initiator and driving force behind the law, stated: "I do not think it takes very many prosecutions before a signal is transmitted in the community that the Internet is not a lawless country — the sheriff is back in town."
A multitude of online sources reported on this new law as one that "criminalizes online criticism of immigrants," and as such, the news went viral on European immigration critical websites. But is this a correct assessment of this new law?
According to the Swedish parliament, the new law will effectively abolish existing barriers that prevented people from pressing charges if their alleged defamation occurred online instead of in real life. It will facilitate and improve Sweden's ability to participate in international legal cooperation on matters covered by the Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech, and it enables people to avoid having to pay for the other party's legal costs.
On paper, this might sound reasonable, and there is a chance the practical results will remain reasonable as well. The problem is that within the extremely politically correct culture of Sweden, questions, insults and criticism are often viewed as one and the same. Mikael Jalving, the Danish journalist and author of the book "Absolute Sweden" stated: "Sweden's leftist establishment and media believe a cornerstone of their perfect society is multiculturalism — large-scale immigration from some of the poorest, most backward nations on Earth — and Swedes who disagree with that plan risk being labeled racist, fascist, even Nazi."
Even the immigrants themselves do not seem to be allowed to challenge immigration policy or immigrant culture. Last year, a Somali-born female journalist, critical of immigrant culture, was intimidated to such an extent by the Swedish journalistic establishment that she decided Mogadishu was a safer place for her than Sweden.
The ambivalence of Swedish courts toward free speech already became apparent when in 2002 a district court sentenced the white native Swedish neo-Nazi Fredrik Sandberg to six months in prison for publishing a Nazi pamphlet, "The Jewish Question." Four years later, however, the same official who initiated the case against Sandberg — Chancellor of Justice Göran Lambertz — chose to discontinue an investigation into the Stockholm Central Mosque, after it distributed audiotapes that encouraged Muslims to kill Jews, described in them as "brothers of apes and pigs." He justified the discrepancy by saying that the distribution of the tapes should be judged in a geo-political context. Swedish society seems to be increasingly known for its bias in wanting to criminalize supposed racism by native Swedes against immigrants, while wanting to rationalize Muslim racism against native Swedes, and Jews in particular.
Sweden's third largest newspaper, Expressen, has used hackers affiliated with the left-wing extremist Anti-Fascist-Action group to obtain the addresses of individuals commenting on websites critical of mass immigration. The newspaper then visited their homes and in some instances, published their pictures and addresses. The Swedish TV station TV3 announced that the TV-show "troll-hunters," would visit online commentators in their homes — in a sort of 21st century televised witch-hunt.
The Swedish newspaper Expressen hacked databases of website commenters, targeted critics of immigration, and confronted them at home. The above screenshot is taken from a video on the Expressen website, published under the headline "Jim Olsson writes on hate sites."
This new law has the potential to carry that witch-hunt to the next level. Not only is the political-journalistic establishment intimidating critics of online immigration by knocking on their front doors and shaming them, but under this new law, they could even charge a perceived critic with committing a crime.
Economist Dr. Jan Tullburg published a book in which he states that annually, immigration costs Sweden 7% of its GDP. Sweden is also home to sizeable Muslim enclaves that have become off-limits to Swedish police. The multitude of violent riots that erupt in these enclaves not only cost millions of Krona but are undermining the fabric of Swedish society. Sweden apparently enjoys tolerating the intolerable.
In the meantime, apart from South Africa, Sweden now has the highest number of rapes (that are reported) in the world per capita (see UN "Statistics on Crime, Sexual Violence"). However, this number should be nuanced, as the term "rape" in Sweden is defined broadly and includes more than just forced, non-consensual intercourse. There are, however, rapes that are not being reported to the police at all. A significant percentage of these "rapes" are apparently committed by immigrants from a Muslim background. The Swedish government has refused to keep track of these numbers, which by definition cannot be exact, but multiple reports, based on unofficial accounts from policemen and social workers, put the percentage at around 75%. It must be emphasized that these numbers come from unofficial sources and cannot be verified since there aren't any official Swedish numbers on what percentage of rapes are committed by Muslim immigrants. But, Mohammed, for example, a 27-year-old illegal immigrant from Syria, who arrived in Sweden in September, has thus far sexually molested 21 girls and women between the ages of 4 and 69. According to a police report in neighboring Norway, a country politically similar to Sweden, 100% of all rapes in Oslo over the last five years were committed by Muslim immigrants. [Oslo figure seems improbable, but the figure is said to come from a 'police report', so it is presumably correct?]
It will be illuminating to see what impact this new law has on Sweden's citizenry and their free speech once it goes into effect this Christmas.
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Article grabbed my attention because of the reference to Expressen newspaper being involved in hacking databases of commenters, which is rather an unusual activity for a news outlet (I think?).
By my estimation, from other material I'd looked at, Gatestone Institute is a pro Israel NGO. So that's worthwhile bearing in mind when looking at the article. On the other hand, it's all relative, I guess. For the pro Israel supporters, the arrest for blocking construction of a security barrier in Israel would not be seen in a positive light. For Palestinian supporters, this would be seen as a positive form of protest.
However, facts are facts and presumably Expressen was involved in hacking databases, or Gatestone would have been compelled not to disseminate this information.
There's a number of hot issues and conflicting political forces in Sweden.
Generalising from the contents of this article and from what I've read so far elsewhere: there's a totalitarian quality to Sweden's liberalism, it would seem: incursions into freedom of speech and media-led witch-hunts against those with opposing views; labelling of those with opposing views as extremists of one kind or another: 'nazi' or 'fascist'; a politically correct approach to crimes statistics gathering and, it would seem, a parallel justice system; physical no-go areas to police (which I found astounding); violence; and from what I've previously read, issues regarding cultural integration.
Find this stuff fascinating, but I haven't read enough to get a handle on what's really going on. Looks to be very interesting competing political interests in Sweden.
Maybe I'm strange, but the most shocking thing for me was Expressen involved in hacking of databases. I'm still spun out by that.
Thought the bit about 'free', 'democratic' and 'transparent' Sweden was quite a giggle. But I guess even freedom etc is relative?
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PS Forgot to do a look-up regarding the Somali-born female journalist that was 'run out of town'. Sounds an interesting story to check out, given this has occurred in 'feminist Sweden'.
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Players mentioned by Gatestone currently in the following posts:
Mehmet Kaplan (Green Party)
Housing urban development and IT Minister. Sweden.
Gustav Fridolin (Green Party)
Minister for Education
Ardalan Shekarabi (Swedish Social Democratic Party)
Minister for Public Administration (resides Belfast, Ireland)
Alice Bah Kuhnke (Green Party)
Minister of Culture and Democracy
Hillevi Larsson (Swedish Social Democratic Party)
Riksdag member since 2004, Pro Palestinian
Andreas Norlén (Moderate Party)
Riksdag member since 2006,
* Norlén Initiator of online dissent silencing laws *
Göran Lambertz
Chancellor of Justice (Swedish: justitiekansler) Sweden
2001-2009
currently serving as a judge on the Supreme Court of Sweden
TV3 (Sweden)
owned by: Viasat
Broadcasts from: London
Markets: Nordic and Baltic Countries
Visat owned by: Modern Times Group
publicly traded
Industry Media
Founded 1997
Headquarters Stockholm, Sweden
Key people
David Chance (Chairman)
Jorgen Madsen (President & CEO)
Mathias Hermansson (CFO)
Sweden is "one of the most capital-centralized countries in Europe" [Wikipedia]
Look-ups = Wikipedia
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