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SECURITY

Sweden looks to toughen laws against spying

Counter-espionage laws in Sweden need to be strengthened, with a particular focus on refugees reporting back to their home countries, government investigators stated on Wednesday.

Published: 6 February 2013 17:12 CET

The report findings were handed over to Justice Minister Beatrice Ask.

The investigation focused on collaborative international efforts and on spying by refugees (flyktingspionage) from within Sweden.

The report proposed harder punishments for refugee spies, and said Swedish lawmakers should introduce a new criminal definition of “unlawful intelligence activities against a person” (olovlig underrättelseverksamhet mot person).

There have been several reports in Sweden of refugees reporting on the activities and allegiances of fellow refugees to the authorities in their country of origins, many of which punish political dissenters and in some cases their families.

On top of this, the investigators recommended that such a crime should carry a prison sentences rather than the fines that are given out in accordance with the existing laws.

The investigators added that it should be possible to arrest suspected spies earlier in an investigation than the current system allows.

The government appointed the investigation three years ago with the aim, according to Ask, to make it easier to catch those guilty of espionage in circumstances that extended beyond those affecting only national security.

The investigation, Ask said at the time, was to deal with information stretching beyond Sweden’s military service.

Refugee spying has made headlines as recently as November, when Swedish security service Säpo launched an intelligence probe into suspicions that Syrian intelligence agents were spying on Syrian nationals in Sweden.

Changes to the laws were proposed to come into effect on July 1st next year, with the fundamental changes to the constitution proposed to be amended by January 1st, 2015.

TT/The Local/og

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SECURITY

Swedish Huawei ban is legal, court rules

A Swedish ban on Chinese telecoms company Huawei was confirmed in court on Tuesday, citing the country's security as a just reason for banning its equipment in a 5G rollout.

Published: 23 June 2021 07:14 CEST
Swedish Huawei ban is legal, court rules
Photo: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

The administrative court in Stockholm ruled that the decision of the Swedish telecoms authority, PTS, to ban the use of equipment from Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE in a new Swedish 5G telecom network last October — a move that irked Beijing — was legal.

Equipment already installed must also be removed by January 1st, 2025.

“Sweden’s security is an important reason and the administrative court has considered that it’s only the security police and the military that together have a full picture when it comes to the security situation and threats against Sweden,” judge Ulrika Melin said in a statement.

Huawei denounced the ruling, but did not say whether it would appeal.

“We are of course noting that there has been no evidence of any wrongdoings by Huawei which is being used as basis for this verdict, it is purely based on assumption,” Kenneth Fredriksen, the company’s vice-president for Central, Eastern Europe and the Nordic region, told AFP.

Huawei will now evaluate the decision and the “see what kind of actions we will take to protect our rights,” Fredriksen added.

After the UK in the summer of 2020, Sweden became the second country in Europe and the first in the EU to explicitly ban Huawei from almost all of the network infrastructure needed to run its 5G network.

Beijing had warned that PTS’ decision could have “consequences” for the Scandinavian country’s companies in China, prompting Swedish telecom giant and Huawei competitor Ericsson to worry about retaliation.

“We will continue to be available to have constructive dialogues with Swedish authorities to see if we can find pragmatic ways of taking care of security and at the same time keeping an open and fair market like Sweden has always been,” Fredriksen said.

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