Xenophobic Swedish Party’s Video: An Army of Burqas
LGF reader Winny Spencer pointed out this campaign advertisement for far right Swedish party Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats), an organization with neo-Nazi roots.
Anti-Muslim crusaders Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, when not agitating against mosques, promote Sweden Democrats along with other extreme right wing European groups (such as the “Stop Islamisation” hate franchise and the Belgian Vlaams Belang), and you can see why in this video — a shockingly overt appeal to xenophobia. This is the European ethnic and religious hatred Geller and Spencer are working hard to import to America.
UPDATE at 8/27/10 1:26:03 pm:
Sweden’s TV4 is refusing to broadcast the advertisement.
“We decided not to broadcast it,” Gunnar Gidefeldt, communications director for TV4, told AFP.
Swedish law on freedom of expression prohibits messages that contain hate grounded on race and religion, said Gidefeldt.
“In this case, it is against religion,” he said.
According to party press secretary Erik Almqvist, the ad does not violate Swedish law. The party has screened the clip for lawyers, who said that it does not break the law against inciting racial hatred.
“The conflict we see as a result of mass immigration is not related to the person’s origin, but rather a conflict of values, as far as we can see,” said Almqvist in reference to the burqa-clad women in the video.
TV4 CEO Jan Scherman disagreed.
“The film is contrary to the democracy clause in the Radio and Television Act and also against democracy clauses which the Sweden Democrats, among others, have adopted for the equality of all people, regardless of whether it is the European Convention or the UN Charter,” he said.
“The film is also against the constitution act on freedom of speech that prohibits hate speech,” Scherman added.
