Swedish NGOs reported 65
antisemitic incidents in 2004, mostly cases of harassment, but also 4 of
physical assault. In a report rating intolerance among students in relation to
Jews, Muslims, homosexuals and immigrants, the Living History Forum found a
high degree of tolerance toward the Jewish minority in Sweden.
THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
Sweden has a Jewish population of
about 18,000, or 0.2 percent, out of a general population of 9 million. The
majority, approximately 10,000, live in the larger cities – Stockholm,
Göteborg and Malmö. Smaller Jewish communities can be found in Boras, Uppsala, Norrköping and Helsingborg. The various communities are independent,
but linked through the Council of Swedish Jewish Communities.
A Stockholm-based magazine, Judisk
Krönika, appears bi-monthly, as well as Tachless, the magazine
of the Jewish congregation. Shechita (Jewish ritual slaughter) is
prohibited and kosher meat is imported from abroad. According to a report of the Swedish Animal Welfare Agency, while they saw no obstacles to the performance of ritual
slaughter, the laws made it impossible for the time being.
POLITICAL organizations and GROUPS
Since the 2002 elections when they
won 1.44 percent (76,000 votes) of the vote, the Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden
Democrats – SD) have remained the undisputed nationalist alternative in Sweden and the single largest party outside parliament. More than half of the 50 seats they
hold in local councils are located in the southern region of Scania.
SD propaganda focuses on three
populist themes: anti-immigrant rhetoric claiming that immigrants are behind
most violent crime and that Muslim fundamentalism is a threat to Swedish
culture and the Swedish judicial system; conspiracy theories alleging that
mainstream democratic organizations, the media and politicians are ‘betraying’
or ‘selling out’ the nation to a foreign ‘army of occupation’ – the immigrants;
and anti-European Union campaigning in which the EU is perceived as a threat to
democracy in Europe.
Mikael Jansson, the party
chairman from 1995 till 2005, invested considerable effort into changing the
fascist image of the party in order to make it more attractive to populist
voters dissatisfied with the mainstream parties (see ASW 1998/9).
However, the party has been plagued by power struggles in recent years.
(National Democrats – ND), have four seats in local councils in the greater
Stockholm area, are a breakaway group formed in 2001 by hardcore SD activists
who were expelled after clashing with Jansson’s faction over ‘liberalization’
of the party. The ND split in late summer 2004 following an internal power
struggle and half the executive left, taking three of the local Stockholm area seats with them. Part of the conflict centered on handling of the ‘Jewish
question’, with the antisemitic line prevailing. The new leader, Thomas
Johansson, is trying to rebuild the party. Those who left returned to SD or moved
to more hard-core neo-Nazi organizations. The ND view the SD as their main
enemy and are extremely contemptuous of former comrades and party leaders.
Although Sweden remains a major producer of
white power music, a growing portion of records, videos and other
merchandise is sent to overseas markets. The Nordic Publishing House was
the main white power propaganda disseminator in 2004, replacing Nordland,
owned by the late US white supremacist William Pierce, and Ragnarock Records,
run by Erik Blücher and Blood & Honour/Scandanavia, which dominated in
For many years the fastest
growing national socialist organization in Sweden, Nationalsocialistisk
Front (National Socialist Front – NSF) suffered a serious setback in 2000 when
its founder and charismatic party leader Anders Högström left the
Nazi movement (see ASW 2001/2).
The organization is now led by Anders Ärleskog and Daniel Höglund. In
2003 propaganda chief Björn Björkqvist also defected but in 2004 he returned
to the party and remains influential.
The vehemently anti-Jewish NSF
calls for a return to a more traditional National Socialism, and has adopted
much of the style of the original brown shirt ideology of the 1930s. The NSF
base has been moved from southern to mid-west Sweden, near the town of Vara. During 2004 the Front arranged several white power music nights with hundreds of
Motståndsrörelsen/Nationell Ungdom (Swedish Resistance/National
Youth – SMR/NU) are one of the most professionally organized and impenetrable
groups on the extreme right. Svenska Motstandsrörelsen (SMR) was
formed in 1997 as an umbrella organization for pro-terrorism hardliners of the
splintered Stockholm neo-Nazi milieu. Among its founders was the convicted
criminal, former White Aryan Resistance (VAM) activist Klas Lund. After
its merger with Nordland Records, SMR expanded rapidly, until the death of
Nordland owner William Pierce in 2002. In 2004 Klas Lund was convicted of possession of an illegal firearm. Shortly after beginning his jail sentence he
escaped and hid for more than six months until the police found him in Norway with the Norwegian Resistance Movement.
National Youth (NU) was originally
launched to pose as a ‘patriotic’ and ‘nationalistic’ youth club. Its cover was
almost immediately blown and NU has become the leading neo-Nazi organization in
the greater Stockholm area. Several members of SMR/NU were convicted of
involvement in various violent crimes and terrorist offenses in 1999, among
them the assassination of an anti-Nazi trade unionist. NU activities, mainly in
the larger cities of Stockholm and Göteborg, increased in 2004 after two
years of a negative spiral.
SMR/NU was once closely aligned
with the so-called secretive Anti-AFA (Anti-fascist) organization, which claims
to be the ‘intelligence apparatus’ of the neo-Nazi world. Anti-AFA compiles
lists of ‘anti-nationalist enemies’, including journalists, police officers,
politicians and anti-racist activists. Police raids have secured several
files from the computers of neo-Nazis, containing hundreds of these names. A
key individual in the Anti-AFA network is believed to be Robert Vesterlund, a
former skinhead and SD youth leader, and publisher of the magazine Info-14
2001/2). Following conviction of the compiler of the enemy list in 2003,
280 out of the thousand persons on it sued him for at least 10,000 SEK each.
Since the murder of 17-year-old
skinhead Daniel Wretström by a youth gang of mixed Swedish and immigrant
background in the town of Salem, south of Stockholm, in December 2000, the town
has become a rallying point for neo-Nazis and extreme rightists in Sweden on the anniversary of his death. The Salem Fund, set up by the Nazi prison
organization Yellow Cross, together with the pro-terrorist Info-14 and
Blood & Honour for organizing the annual commemoration, is supported
by the entire nationalist spectrum, except the Sweden Democrats.
There was a decline in the number of participants, from 2000 in 2003 to 1,400 in 2004.
Led by Curt Linusson, a former UN
peace-keeping officer in Bosnia, the Legion Wasa is a paramilitary unit
made up of a criminal neo-Nazi hardcore, many of whom are associated with the
NSF. Linusson says his force is preparing for a “forthcoming racial conflict”
against the Jews. The Legion, which holds maneuvers in forests in central Sweden, has organized several rallies against the construction of a mosque in the town of Skövde. In early 2003 Linusson held abortive negotiations with the Iraqi embassy in
order to send an armed volunteer squad to assist Saddam Husayn in his conflict
with the US. In 2004 a former activist of the Legion was prosecuted for creating
a terrorist cell in Sweden aimed at launching a holy racial war.
Begun as a publishing house in
2002, Nordiska Förbundet (Nordic Association) became an
organization in 2004. It is influenced by the US National Alliance and
especially by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who has interviewed
leading activists from the association on his radio show. The publishing house distributes
antisemitic books such as Duke’s Jewish Supremacy and Lars Adelskogh´s
Holocaust denying work An Empty Sack. The organization, in cooperation
with the publishing house, circulates the magazines Nordic Freedom and Peoples'
Annual statistics compiled by the
Office for Defense of the Constitution of the National Police Board (NPB) were not
published for the year 2004 due to a change in monitoring methods. The year 2003
witnessed a rise of 5 percent in hate crimes, from 3,736 in 2002 to 3,914. Of the total, 1,539 crimes were linked to the far right wing, compared to
1,374 the previous year.
Many in the Jewish community feel it
wise to hide their identity, although they believe only a small percentage of
the 400,000 Muslim immigrants to be a threat, according to an assessment of antisemitism in Sweden published
in Israel's leading newspaper Ha’aretz. Lena Posner-Koeroesi, president of the Stockholm Jewish community, claimed that whenever officials want to take action on
antisemitism, they group it together with Islamophobia and homophobia.
Researcher Mikael Tossavainen drafted a report issued by the Council Against
Anti-Semitism that surveyed antisemitism among Muslim immigrants. The report
aroused controversy due to Tossavainen's interviewing of school teachers, who noted
Muslim pupils’ objection to studying the Holocaust. He also stated that Swedes
were unaware of what was going on in the large Muslim communities in the
suburbs. Swedish Islamic studies scholar Jan Samuelsson claimed in the mainstream Dagens
Nyheter (20 Oct. 2004) that Arabs would hate the Jews as long as Israel occupied Arab lands, an idea that met with understanding among Swedes. Prof. Henrik
Bachner of Lund University, said events in the Middle East might sharpen
antisemitism but were not the origin of it. Bachner stressed that analogies between
Israel and the Nazis and the use of terminology drawn from the Christian
tradition, such as “the crucifixion of Arafat” in Aftonbladet before
Easter 2003, reflected tolerance of antisemitism (Amiram Barkat, “Jews in
Sweden Are Afraid to Be Known as Jews,” Ha’aretz, 10 Feb.
There were 65 unofficial reports of antisemitic incidents in 2004, mostly cases of
harassment (threats and verbal abuse), and 4 of physical assault. This
compares with police reports for 2003 of 3 cases of minor assault, 35 cases of
harassment and 9 cases of vandalism of Jewish sites. Most offenses were
committed in the metropolitan areas of Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö
where the majority of Jews reside.
Violence, Vandalism and Harassment
Much antisemitic crime in 2004,
particularly violence and vandalism, appeared to be triggered by the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. On 30 March, for example, four youths of Middle East origin entered a
Jewish-owned shop in Mälmo and assaulted the shopkeeper and a Jewish
customer. The shopkeeper was hospitalized. A Jewish boy was also attacked by
youth of Middle East extraction in Göteborg, in February.
At a soccer match held on 13 June
between a local Maccabi team and a team of immigrant players, spectators shouted
“Death to the Jews” and “Crush Zionism.” After the game the coach of the
opposing team approached one of the Jewish players and hit him in the face,
starting a brawl that ended with the hospitalization of one of the Jewish
A group of youths shouted “We’ll
kill you” at a Jew standing near a synagogue in Malmö. The police arrested
one of them.
The Jewish cemetery in Stockholm was desecrated twice; 17 gravestones were broken in April and 4 in September.
Since the September 11 attacks antisemitism
has remained a cornerstone of neo-Nazi ideology while Islamphobia is primarily
the province of the more ‘respectable’ Sweden Democrats. The National Democrats
propagate both, although when discussing conspiracy theories, Jews are usually
referred to indirectly as ‘Illuminati’, ‘Free Masonry’ and ‘international
capitalism’. Jews are seen as ‘the threat from above’, controlling the
political establishment, the media and the police, while Muslims are viewed as ‘the
threat from below’, seeking an immigrant takeover. The white population is
therefore perceived as being squeezed in a grip between the two.
The Nordic Association was the
most dominant among ultra-conservative and xenophobic organizations in
disseminating anti-Jewish propaganda in 2004. As noted, it is greatly influenced
by US extreme rightists, such as David Duke.
Holocaust denier Ahmed Rami, the
operator of Radio Islam, remains the chief disseminator of propaganda denying
the Holocaust, although most of his activities in recent years have been
limited to the Internet. In spite of his Moroccan background, Rami has gained
the approval of several white power groups, including the NSF. In 2004 Rami was
invited to speak at the Nordic Association where he accused Judaism of “everything
that is evil.”
The Malmö city library hosted
an exhibition in April 2004, which presented Israel as a state built on “expulsion
and terror” and which justified suicide bombing. At its inauguration, the
display was supported, inter alia, by a Malmö politician from the Conservative
Party, who said killing Jewish children was justified, and a Social Democrat,
who said bombing Jewish civilians was self-defense, Jewish terrorists had
created the State of Israel and the task of his party was to represent Muslims,
not Jews, in Malmö’s high-immigrant density suburb of Rosengärd.
In 2004 the Living History Forum published
a major survey on intolerance which was distributed among 10,000 students in Sweden aged 14−18. Over 75 percent of the students actually completed the survey,
which covered antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia and xenophobia.
Eighty-three percent of
respondents agreed with the statement that most Jews were good people and 72
percent said they would not mind living next to a Jew. Twenty-two percent,
however, opposed Jews having the right to build religious buildings,
while 23 percent opposed Muslims having the right to
build mosques. Twelve percent agreed with the statement that there were too
many Jews in Sweden. Ninety percent did not support the statement that Jews were
In order to measure the level of antisemitism, the compilers
of the survey inserted a number of prejudices, such as “A Jew is a stingy
person.” Ten similar statements formed a battery of measurable parameters. Five
percent agreed with certainty or with some certainty that the scurrilous portrait was
correct. The general index of intolerance
against Jews was 1.04 (1.00 marking absolute tolerance). Thus, the majority of the
students felt positively toward Jews in Sweden; just under 6 percent, however,
had an index higher than 2.5, indicating high intolerance. The findings indicate that the rate
of antisemitism among Muslim immigrants was no higher than among other sectors
of society that identified themselves as non-religious.
RESPONSES TO EXTREMISM AND
In May 2004 the Jewish Central
Council in Sweden wrote to Archbishop K.G. Hammar, breaking off contacts
with the Swedish (Lutheran) Church. Hammar had initiated the decision of
the Swedish Church to boycott products originating in the territories occupied
by Israel. His campaign had the backing of 12 organizations that want the EU to
break its trade agreements with Israel. The Council letter protested a lack of
sympathy with the Jews of Sweden and pointed out that singling out Israel for boycott, when many other states could be accused of the same infractions, was an
expression of antisemitism.
Seminars and other events were
held during 2004 under the auspices of Sweden’s Living History Project,
initiated by Prime Minister Göran Persson following the January 2000
Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust. The project has become a model
for Holocaust education in Europe. Sweden initiated and remains an active member of the International
Task Force on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research. Paideia, the
European Institute of Jewish Studies is based in Sweden.
The Swedish Committee against
Antisemitism (SCAA) continued to arrange lectures and courses on antisemitism,
Holocaust denial, neo-Nazism and white power music throughout the country,
mostly for teachers and school personnel.
Educational seminars on
antisemitism and Islamophobia were an important part of the anti-fascist Expo
Foundation’s activities in 2004.