Anti-Racist groups have not taken nicely to attempts by the neo-fascist Swedish Defense League (SDL) to assert their anti-Muslim message in the streets of Malmo.

Swedes Counter Anti-Muslim Rally

Rejecting of their hate message against Muslims, many Swedes have showed up in the southern city of Malmo to protest against a far-right group, leading to abort the anti-Muslim rally.

“There were angry skirmishes after the anti-racists marched from Möllevångstorget square to the Stortorget square around noon, a lot of people seemed ready for a fight,” said The Local’s Patrick Reilly from the scene.

“They were pushing over barricades, setting off flares and some threw bottles, and went up against the police,” he said.

Rejecting of their hate message against Muslims, many Swedes have showed up in the southern city of Malmo to protest against a far-right group, leading to abort the anti-Muslim rally.

“There was also the odd snowball tossed at police.”

Clashes erupted after hundreds of Swedes gathered to counter a planned rally by the far-right Swedish Defence League (SDL).

Some demonstrators used a Eurovision awning on the square to beat out a rhythm, chanting “No racist on our streets”.

One banner hoisted above the march read “No Breivik Soldiers on our streets,” in reference to far-right Norwegian killer, who killed dozens people in twin attacks in Oslo in 2011.

The SDL rally lured only 20 members.

“The SDL were waving a Swedish flag on their way to the square and gave the counter-demonstrators the finger,” Reilly said.

The SDL is a sister group of the anti-Muslim English Defence League (EDL) and was set up in 2012.

Sweden Democrats politician was expelled from party after saying ‘a mosque is just a building’

Radio Sweden reports that since the last general election in 2010, when the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats were elected to parliament for the first time, 30 members have been forced to leave the party.

Some of these have been high-profile individuals, such as Erik Almqvist, the MP who came under fire after a video emerged of him engaging in drunken racist abuse. As a result, Almqvist was forced to resign both his parliamentary seat and his party membership – and was then promptly rehired by the Sweden Democrats as a media consultant.

Other Sweden Democrats politicians who embarrassed the party leadership have been treated rather less kindly. Radio Sweden spoke to Lennart Carlström, who was elected as a Sweden Democrats representative to the local council in Härnösand in 2010. He was expelled from the party last year.

Carlström says that he agreed with tough controls over immigration but fell out with the party over his view that migrants already living in Sweden should be treated fairly, along with his rejection of the anti-Muslim hysteria that characterises the Sweden Democrats’ propaganda.

Carlström publicly stated that it he had nothing against children of migrant families receiving lessons in their mother tongue. “Young people shouldn’t lose their language just because they are immigrants,” he explains. “People maybe thought that my views were too liberal on this issue.”

A comment he made about mosques also contributed to his expulsion from the party. “I said that a mosque was just a building,” says Carlström.

If you’re a Sweden Democrats politician you can state that Muslims have no right to practise their faith in your town, or call for Islam to be banned and its adherents deported, and you won’t have a problem with the party leadership. But suggest that a mosque is an ordinary place of worship and you’re out.

The SD’s popularity is still hovering around 10%.

Sweden Democrats MP quits after racist scandal

A Swedish lawmaker once seen as a future leader of the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats party announced Sunday he was quitting parliament and the party after a racist scandal.

Erik Almqvist, 31, was one of three party officials caught on film hurling racist abuse at two men, arming themselves with iron bars after a heated argument outside a fast-food restaurant, and calling a woman who tried to intervene a little “whore”.

“No, this is not your country, it’s my country,” Almqvist is seen telling one of the men in the clip.

Almqvist, who had been the party’s economic affairs spokesman, stepped down from that position in mid-November when theExpressen newspaper published excerpts of the two-year-old video clip, filmed by the party’s justice spokesman Kent Ekeroth on his cell phone.

On Sunday Almqvist said he was leaving the party immediately and would resign from his seat in parliament once it reconvened after the Christmas break. He will be replaced in parliament by Anna Hagwall, 59, the Sweden Democrats said.

“This has been an incredibly difficult and weighty decision for me. I realise that my behaviour that night two-and-a-half years ago has hurt both the party and me as a politician,” Almqvist said in a statement on Sunday. “I have decided, after consultation with the party, to resign from both parliament and the party,” he said.

Ekeroth meanwhile announced after the film clip emerged in November that he was taking a temporary break from his position as justice spokesman, but he remains a member of parliament.

Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Aakesson recently announced a purge of racist and “extremist” elements in the party.

Recent polls have suggested that the party has been unharmed by the scandal, with its support hovering around 10 percent. The party entered Sweden’s parliament in 2010 after winning 5.7 percent of the vote.

AFP, 30 December 2012

Update:  See “‘You won’t get rid of me’: Almqvist”, The Local, 31 December 2012

The anti-Muslim Dispatch International which we wrote about earlier is being sent to SD members now.

Sweden Democrats send members anti-Islam mag

Some 6,000 members of the Sweden Democrats will be receiving an anti-Islam newspaper at the end of the month, courtesy of the party. “Dispatch International is a paper that plays an important role in the societal debate,” MP and editor in chief for the Sweden Democrat paper SD–Kuriren, Richard Jomshof, told local paper Sydsvenskan.

The publication, which is connected to the Swedish anti-Islam group “Freedom of the Press Society” (Tryckfrihetssällskapet), recently featured an article where a professor argues that the Muslim call to prayer should not only be seen as that but also as a threat. The Freedom of the Press Society has previously also posted anti-Semitic comments on its Facebook page.

As the paper will be sent together with the existing Sweden Democrat publication, the party will pay for postage. “There are many connections between us and the Freedom of the Press Society, both personal and ideological. The paper will be sent as a supplement to our paper, so it won’t cost a lot extra,” said Jomshof to Sydsvenskan.

Jomshof told the paper that he doesn’t think that sending the publication along with the Sweden Democrat paper is in any way in breach of the party’s recent zero-tolerance policy against racism. “The newspaper can hardly be seen as racist. Not all Muslims are of the same race,” Jomshof told the paper.

The Local, 22 November 2012

The International Free Press Society which publishes Dispatch International is headed by Lars Hedegaard, the notorious Danish Islamophobe who was convicted of inciting racial hatred as a result of an interview in which he described Muslims as morally depraved rapists. Last year a former member of the IFPS board, James Cohen, was appointed head of the English Defence League’s Jewish Division.

For further background, see Torbjörn Jerlerup, “Dispatch International: CounterJihad publishes a paper”, Loonwatch, 6 September 2012

Sweden Democrats' Leader

The big news from Europe recently has been the somewhat surprise victory of the Sweden Democrats, a group with roots in Nazism that is thoroughly anti-Islam and anti-Immigrant with views parallel to those of Geert Wilders. This victory is no surprise to those analyzing events in Europe where the general trend has been a reassertion of nativist rhetoric and policies coupled with anti-Muslim/Islam parties emerging victorious.

Russia TV has a good article on this trend,

Austria’s far right riding anti-Islamic wave in elections

Far-right parties are boosting their influence across Europe amid anti-Islamic agendas and calls for tougher immigration laws.

Such rhetoric has helped elect the Sweden Democrats to parliament for the first time. Now the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party is fueling nationalism in its campaign, hoping for resurgence this weekend.

The “Bye Bye Mosque” game was released by the Freedom Party as part of its bid for election into regional government in Styria – Austria’s second largest province – and the game’s message has hit a raw nerve.

The aim is simple: take aim and shoot down as many new mosques as you can, as they rise relentlessly above Austria’s Alpine skyline. If you are not quick enough, the country is Islamized.

“We are defending our rights, our traditions and our culture. We do not want to be dissolved into Islam, nor do we want there to be parallel Islamic societies in our country,” states Dr. Gerhard Kurzmann, a Freedom Party Candidate.

Within 24 hours, the game received more than 200,000 web hits.

Within a week it was banned.

[Update:] The real Sweden turns out to support its minorities, reassert its values and demonstrate against the Sweden “Democrats” (hat tip: Rob):