Leading Sweden Democrat resigns positions in party after exposure of racist comments

Marie Stensby Sunni Shia commentA leading Sweden Democrat has been forced to resign following revelations that she had posted xenophobic and insulting messages on various far-right websites.

“For us it’s primarily a question that representatives must never represent extremism regardless of platform,” Sweden Democrat spokesperson Martin Kinnunen said on Tuesday.

Marie Stensby represented the Sweden Democrats in Jämtland in northern Sweden and was voted in as an alternate member of executive board at the recent party conference; until Tuesday’s revelation in the Expressen daily she had furthermore intended to stand for election to Sweden’s Riksdag in 2014.

The local politician previously leapt to national media attention in November 2012 when she called for the establishment of a “reservation for Sweden’s indigenous peoples” in her home county of Jämtland. “In my darkest moments I wonder if you (Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt)… would consider adopting an old American model. For us Swedes who want to carry on being just that, Swedes,” she explained at the time.

Stensby is among some eleven representatives for the Sweden Democrats named by Expressen on Tuesday to be the people behind aliases used to express insulting and xenophobic comments on various websites frequented by Sweden’s far-right. The aliases have been exposed by a group named Researchgruppen which is credited by the newspaper with having established their identities via the forum platform Disqus.

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Doctor refused to treat Muslim woman because she wouldn’t shake his hand

A Muslim woman in southern Sweden has filed a complaint with the Equality Ombudsman because a doctor refused to treat her after she wouldn’t shake his hand for religious reasons.

The incident took place in Malmö last spring when the woman was referred to a specialist by her own doctor as she was suffering stomach pain. According to the Equality Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen – DO) the woman did not have any issue with being examined by a man. However, when the specialist reached out to shake her hand she refused the gesture, arguing it was against her religious beliefs.

“She decided not to shake his hand and instead placed her hand against her own chest and nodded to him which she considered to be a courteous gesture,” Clas Lundstedt, spokesman for the Equality Ombudsman, told The Local. “The specialist took offence and refused to treat her. It was later put into her medical journal that in the future she would be treated by a woman.”

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Sweden: Archbishop speaks out after anti-Islam attacks

Antje Jackelén (2)Sweden’s newly elected archbishop Antje Jackelén has admitted she wasn’t prepared for the online abuse she has received from anti-Islamists labelling the attacks as “spiteful.”

Jackelén became the first female archbishop of the Church of Sweden in October and is known for her views on religious tolerance and arguments in favour of a multi-faith Sweden. She will take up the post next year but has already been the target of abuse by users on xenophobic online forums and Twitter who have slammed Jackelén for her beliefs and even her hairstyle.

“Choose Muhammed instead so we can be spared from your ugly old man’s haircut,” posted one user on a message board while another asked for her to be burned at the stake.

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Anne Marie Waters resigns from One Law for All

Waters stoning to death DI article

Anne Marie Waters seems to be making a habit of resigning these days. Last month she left the Labour Party – citing its support for multiculturalism, selection of Ken Livingstone as its London mayoral candidate, and imposition of legal restrictions on hate speech as reasons for her departure – and now she has resigned from her post as joint spokesperson for the anti-sharia campaign One Law for All.

Last week Waters’ co-spokesperson Maryam Namazie posted Waters’ resignation letter on the OLFA website. Waters says in it that she still believes the “fight against sharia and Islamism” is “one of the most important and urgent causes we face in the 21st Century”. But rather than conducting this struggle through OLFA she will be “working with other people and groups to speak out for democracy, liberty, and the right to freedom of speech and association”. No doubt she has in mind her friends at the Danish-Swedish “counterjihad” publication Dispatch International, to which she has become a regular contributor (her most recent article is entitled “Stoning to death is now a moderate position in the UK”).

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Pig’s feet thrown into Stockholm mosque, windows smashed

Fittja MosquePolice suspect vandalism after pig’s trotters were thrown into a mosque near Stockholm after the windows of the building’s main door were smashed in on Monday morning.

“Shortly before 11am we received a call from the mosque” in Fittja, police official Ulf Lindgren told AFP. “The person had just arrived and found pig’s trotters inside.” In Islam, pork meat is considered impure. “We have classified this as an act of vandalism,” Lindgren said. “But insofar as it is pig’s trotters, it could be something else.”

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European far-right parties team up against Islam and Brussels

Six European far-right parties joined forces Thursday to combat immigration and European bureaucracy ahead of 2014 elections, French newspaper Liberation reported.

The parties, which include France’s Front National, are teaming up against two common enemies: Brussels and Islam, the newspaper said. The Netherlands’ PVV, Belgium’s Vlaams Belang, Italy’s Liga Norte, Swedish democrats and Austria’s Freedom Party met at a hotel in Vienna to discuss the outlines of their collaboration.

The meeting happened in secret so as not to attract the attention of possible demonstrators, the paper said, and to be able to devote their time to strategizing about the future of the far-right in Europe.

But Andreas Mölzer, the organizer of the meeting and an Austrian member of the European Parliament, confirmed the meeting took place. “The points that unite us are more important than those that separate us,” he told Liberation.

The National Front declined to comment for this story.

Vlaams Belang’s Filip Claeys told Flemish newspaper De Morgen he would join the meeting the next day. “We are going to define a number of themes tomorrow to go to voters together,” Claeys said. “Think migration and the extension of the European Union.”

The politicians aim to form a political party in the European Parliament, the newspaper reported, for which they need 25 representatives from seven countries. They also wish to draw up a common list of issues to address in parliament, as well as smooth over their differences from the past.

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Anne Marie Waters and Dispatch International – one more time

Anne Marie Waters open letter to Miliband

The appalling Anne Marie Waters, who is a member of the National Secular Society council and spokesperson for the anti-sharia campaign One Law For All, has featured on Islamophobia Watch a number of times. (So many times, in fact, that even I’m getting bored with the subject – which is why it’s taken me a while to get round to writing this piece.)

In addition to whipping up fear and hatred of Islam through the NSS and OLFA, Waters also hoped to acquire a parliamentary platform for her views, via the Labour Party. Unfortunately for Waters, the latter ambition proved irreconcilable with her other activities. Her attempt earlier this year to win selection as the Labour candidate for the Brighton Pavilion constituency was defeated, thanks not least to Andy Newman’s admirable work (see here and here) in exposing her Islamophobic views.

Last month Waters resigned from the Labour Party, announcing her decision in an open letter to Ed Miliband that was published in the “counterjihad” newspaper Dispatch International, to which she is now a regular contributor. The reasons Waters gave for leaving the party were that she was opposed to Labour’s support for multiculturalism, to Ken Livingstone’s selection as Labour candidate in the 2012 London mayoral election, and to Labour’s “introduction of insidious hate speech laws”.

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Dispatch International editors visit UK for a chat with Lennon

Stephen Lennon with Hedegaard and Carlqvist
Dispatch International co-editors Lars Hedegaard and Ingrid Carlqvist in London with ex-EDL leader Stephen Lennon

Following the humiliating failure of their recent efforts to organise a Scandinavian speaking tour for the English Defence League leadership, Lars Hedegaard and Ingrid Carlqvist, co-editors of the notorious “counterjihad” publication Dispatch International, have travelled to the UK to talk to Stephen Lennon. The results of their discussions with the former head of the EDL can be found here and here.

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A postscript on Anne Marie Waters and Dispatch International

Anne Marie Waters (2)We have already run two pieces on National Secular Society council member and One Law For All spokesperson Anne Marie Waters and her involvement with the notorious “counterjihad” publication Dispatch International (see here and here).

However, it’s also worth noting that Waters’ new role as a contributor to DI has gone down very well elsewhere in the “counterjihad” network. Here is George Igler congratulating Ingrid Carlqvist on her recruitment of such a well-known figure from the secularist movement:

George Igler congratulates DI on recruiting Waters

Carlqvist we have previously introduced – she is co-editor of DI and a firm proponent of the view that western civilisation is being dumbed down as a result of “huge immigration from low IQ countries”. But who is George Igler?

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EDL leaders’ Scandinavian tour cancelled

We have previously covered the difficulties the “counterjihad” publication Dispatch International has faced in booking meetings in Malmö and Copenhagen for English Defence League leaders Stephen Lennon and Kevin Carroll.

Earlier this week DI regretfully announced that the EDL speaking tour has now been called off: “Rarely has an arrangement met with so many problems. First we couldn’t rent a hall and now we have to cancel the meeting altogether.”

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