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NAZI

Swedish neo-Nazis hand out flyers, causing fight to break out

Scuffles broke out in Oskarshamn on Saturday after neo-Nazi organisation Nordic Resistance Movement (Nordiska motståndsrörelsen, NMR) began handing out flyers in the centre of the town.

Published: 23 July 2017 14:13 CEST
Swedish neo-Nazis hand out flyers, causing fight to break out
NMR members carrying the extremist group's newspaper during the Sweden's Almedalen political forum week earlier this month. Photo: Janerik Henriksson/TT

A man in his forties was pushed to the ground by a supporter of the group and five people are suspected of committing assault, reports local media Oskarshamns-Tidningen.

Physical confrontation broke out when the man asked the neo-Nazi group to stop filming him, according to the report. When the group refused, he tried to take the camera from them and was then attacked.

Police have seized a camera containing footage documenting the disturbance.

“It has been confiscated as evidence in case there is film or pictures of what happened,” police spokesperson Stephan Söderholm told Oskarshamns-Tidningen.

The man who was attacked did not suffer serious injury.

The extremist NMR group made headlines earlier this month for disrupting Sweden’s Almedalen political forum week after organisers decided to allow them to participate in the event.

Also on Saturday, a man wearing a t-shirt that read “Revolution: Support the Nordic Resistance Movement” walked on to the court during the Swedish Open tennis match between David Ferrer and Fernando Verdasco, yelled Nazi slogans and raised his arm in a Nazi-like salute.

Security guards and police officers escorted the man away as incredulous commentators decried the incident as an “absolute scandal”.

READ ALSO: Swedish neo-Nazis lose trademark battle with German deep-freeze firm

NEO-NAZI

Spain probes anti-Semitic speech at ‘horrific’ neo-Nazi rally

Prosecutors in Madrid on Tuesday said they had opened an investigation into anti-Semitic comments made at a neo-Nazi rally held at the weekend which drew ire from Spain's Jewish community.

Published: 17 February 2021 10:33 CET
Spain probes anti-Semitic speech at 'horrific' neo-Nazi rally
File photo of a man making a fascist salute in Madrid. Photo: AFP

The incident took place Saturday when around 300 people gathered at La Almudena cemetery, with footage on social media showing several people in the crowd repeatedly giving the Nazi salute.

The rally, which was also attended by a Catholic priest, was a commemoration of the so-called “Blue Division”, a unit of Spanish military volunteers that fought for the Nazis during World War II.

At the cemetery, they laid flowers in front of the memorial to the fallen Blue Division soldiers.

During the rally, a young woman gave an inflammatory speech echoing rhetoric from the 1930s.   

The region's prosecutors confirmed they had opened “criminal investigation to gather information about the anti-Semitic statements” which could constitute an offence relating to the exercise of fundamental rights and public freedoms, according to a statement received by AFP.    

“It is unacceptable that such serious anti-Semitic manifestations go unpunished,” said Isaac Benzaquen, head of the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities, indicating that a complaint had been filed.

Israel's ambassador to Spain, Rodica Radian-Gordon, also tweeted her condemnation, saying the statements were “repugnant and have no place in a democratic society”.

And the American Jewish Committee (AJC) described the rally as “horrific”, calling on the Spanish government on Twitter “to censure these groups endangering democracy”.

At least 200,000 Spanish Jews were forced into exile by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492. Known as Sephardim — the Hebrew term for Jews of Spanish origin — many fled to the Ottoman Empire or North Africa and later to Latin America.   

Today the Jewish community in Spain numbers around 40,000 people, community sources say.

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