Category Archives: Sweden

EDL leaders are refused public venue in Sweden and Denmark

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Carlqvist and HedegaardAs we have already reported, the “counterjihadist” publication Dispatch International has been having difficulty finding venues for the Scandinavian speaking tour it had arranged for English Defence League leaders Stephen Lennon and Kevin Carroll later this month.

DI editors Ingrid Carlqvist and Lars Hedegaard (pictured) hired the Malmö Konferenscenter/Folkets Hus for the Swedish leg of the tour, only to have their booking cancelled by management. This was followed by the cancellation of the booking at the Odd Fellow Palæet, which was the advertised venue for Lennon and Carroll’s appearance in Copenhagen.

Carlqvist and Lars Hedegaard were reduced to holding meetings at undisclosed venues, the location of which would not be revealed until a few hours before the start of the event. But that plan has collapsed too.

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‘Far too few dare criticize Islam’: Abba star

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abba legend Björn Ulvaeus has made veiled criticisms of Islam in a wide-ranging interview with the Wall Street Journal saying “less religion in the world would be better”.

“Look at all the misery in the Middle East for example. All these countries have Islam in common, and far too few dare to criticize Islam as an ideology, and what it’s doing to these countries,” the 68-year-old told the paper.

The Local, 11 September 2013

The ‘counterjihad’ movement finds a new ally

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dispatch International presents EDL

Two weeks ago the self-styled Free Press Society and its Danish/Swedish publication Dispatch International announced that they have invited Stephen Lennon and Kevin Carroll to visit Scandinavia for a speaking tour later this month. The English Defence League leaders are to address meetings in Malmö and Copenhagen where they will explain “why they oppose England’s Islamization and how they go about it”.

Dispatch International was launched in August 2012, with Ingrid Carlqvist and Lars Hedegaard as editors, to serve as an organ of the international “counterjihad” movement. The far-right Sweden Democrats party (which observed that it had “many connections … both personal and ideological” with the Free Press Society) was so impressed with the new publication that it sent a free copy to each of its six thousand members. Challenged at a press conference over whether he was happy distributing a newspaper that compares Islam to Nazism, Sweden Democrats spokesperson Richard Jomshof said he thought this was “a perfectly reasonable comparison”.

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Politicians must follow ‘hijab outcry’ with action

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Michael Privot, director of the European Network Against Racism, welcomes the development of grassroots initiatives across Europe against racist violence and intolerance. However, he argues:

“Public actions like the ‘hijab outcry‘ in Sweden also communicate the need for more political determination to tackle hate crime. So far, politicians in Sweden and Europe have failed to develop effective responses, and there is often an unwillingness to recognize the severity of the problem.”

The Local, 3 September 2013

‘Hijab outcry’ woman in repeat attack

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The pregnant woman who was beaten last Friday in Farstavägen in southern Stockholm, reportedly because she wore a headscarf, has been attacked again, according to Stockholm police.

The woman was attacked in Haninge in southern Stockholm by several men on Thursday, according to a report in the local Mitti.se newspaper. “There were several offenders who attacked her with punches. They told her to withdraw her police report,” said Towe Hägg at Stockholm police. According to Hägg, there are no witnesses to the incident. The woman however sustained visible injuries and was taken to hospital. She was able to leave the same day.

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Headscarf protest after pregnant Muslim woman attacked in Stockholm

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Gina Dirawi and Åsa RomsonA pregnant woman wearing a headscarf was harassed and assaulted in a south Stockholm suburb at the weekend, prompting a call on Monday urging woman to bear headscarves in show of support, regardless of their religious affiliation.

The woman was hospitalized with a concussion late on Friday night after having her head slammed into a car and passing out, she told Sveriges Television (SVT). “She was wearing a headscarf and she thinks her faith is the reason she was assaulted,” Klas Jensgård of Stockholm’s southern district police told the TT news agency.

No arrests have been made in the attack, which took place shortly before midnight in the south Stockholm suburb of Farsta.

Speaking with Sveriges Radio (SR), a friend of the pregnant woman explained that the victim had her headscarf ripped off during the incident. Several other women have since come forward with their own accounts of being harassed because they wear headscarves.

The incident, which also involved racist taunts, has sparked a call for all women to don headscarves in a show of solidarity with the pregnant woman.

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Swedish Defence League’s anti-Muslim protest flops

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SDL Göteborg demo adYesterday the EDL’s sister organisation, the Swedish Defence League, held a protest in Göteborg under the slogan “Stop Muslim immigration”. SDL chairman Kamil Ryba explained that “Islam’s disregard for human life is so evil that it is our duty to protect and fight against this evil”.

Although it was billed as a national demonstration, Göteborgs-Posten reports that only about a dozen people turned up for the event. The SDL’s own photo of the event confirms the derisory turnout.

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Wilders to build further links with European far right

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration PVV, is hoping to work together with Swedish and Italian nationalist parties as well as Belgium’s Vlaams Belang and the Front National in France, Nos television reports.

Wilders, who has made no secret of his contacts with the Belgian and French nationalists, told Nos he has now had contact with the Eurosceptic Sweden Democrats and will also meet officials from the Lega Nord in Italy.

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Mad Mel not mad enough, Robert Spencer complains

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The very welcome ban on hate-mongers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer visiting the UK to join a disgusting publicity stunt planned by the English Defence League predictably had its critics. Equally predictably, one of them was Melanie Phillips.

“What on earth have we come to, after all, when the British Home Secretary is banning people on the basis that they criticise Islam and warn against jihadi violence?”, Phillips demanded indignantly. “Is this not exactly the menacing argument mounted by Islamic extremists, that any condemnation of Islamic extremism is to be banned as ‘Islamophobic’?”

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