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Former Swedish minister charged with sexual molestation

A former Swedish MP and minister faces charges of three cases of sexual molestation, according to Swedish media citing prosecutors.

Published: 5 August 2019 17:11 CEST
Former Swedish minister charged with sexual molestation
Eskil Erlandsson pictured in 2017. Photo: Alexander Larsson Vierth / TT

Former rural affairs minister Eskil Erlandsson, of the Centre Party, resigned from parliament in March following groping allegations.

Four female MPs said that Erlandsson touched them without their consent during lunch and dinner meetings, prompting the Centre Party to ask for his resignation. Prosecutors opened a preliminary investigation the following week, and on Monday initiated prosecution proceedings, meaning the case will go to court.

“It applies to three incidents; three different women and three different events,” prosecutor Lena Kastlund told Expressen, which was first to report the news.

“Originally, it was about four different women, but one case was closed because the identity of the alleged victim was unclear.”

She said she thought the trial would begin in autumn, but that the court has not yet set a date. Erlandsson has denied the allegations. 

READ ALSO: How does Sweden's criminal justice system work?

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CLIMATE CRISIS

Climate protesters wrap Swedish parliament in giant red scarf

Several hundred women surrounded Sweden's parliament with a giant knitted red scarf to protest political inaction over global warming.

Published: 22 April 2024 11:47 CEST
Climate protesters wrap Swedish parliament in giant red scarf

Responding to a call from the Mothers Rebellion movement (Rebellmammorna in Swedish), the women marched around the Riksdag with the scarf made of 3,000 smaller scarves, urging politicians to honour a commitment to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

“I am here for my child Dinalo and for all the kids. I am angry and sad that politicians in Sweden are acting against the climate,” Katarina Utne, 41, a mother of a four-year-old and human resources coach, told AFP.

The women unfurled their scarves and marched for several hundred metres, singing and holding placards calling to “save the climate for the children’s future”.

“The previous government was acting too slowly. The current government is going in the wrong direction in terms of climate policy,” said psychologist Sara Nilsson Lööv, referring to a recent report on Swedish climate policy.

The government, led by the conservative Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and supported by the far-right Sweden Democrats, is in danger of failing to meet its 2030 climate targets, an agency tasked with evaluating climate policy recently reported.

According to the Swedish Climate Policy Council, the government has made decisions, including financial decisions, that will increase greenhouse gas emissions in the short term.

“Ordinary people have to step up. Sweden is not the worst country but has been better previously,” 67-year-old pensioner Charlotte Bellander said.

The global movement, Mothers Rebellion, was established by a group of mothers in Sweden, Germany, the USA, Zambia and Uganda.

It organises peaceful movements in public spaces by sitting and singing but does not engage in civil disobedience, unlike the Extinction Rebellion movement, which some of its organisers came from.

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