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Opposition calls for Sweden Democrat to resign over Mohammed tweet

Sweden's opposition has called for the chair of the parliament's justice policy committee to resign after he called the Prophet Mohammed a "warlord, mass-murderer, slave trader and bandit" in a tweet.

Published: 27 July 2023 16:47 CEST
Opposition calls for Sweden Democrat to resign over Mohammed tweet
Richard Jomshof, the Sweden Democrat chair of the parliament's foreign policy described the Prophet Mohammed as a 'bandit' in a tweet. Photo: Ali Lorestani/TT

Richard Jomshof, whose strong views on Islam made him a controversial choice as committee chair, was responding to a call for “greater dialogue” from Tahir Akan, chair of the Swedish Muslim Association, over how to deal with activists burning the Quran, the holy book of Islam. 

“I agree that we need a ‘broader dialogue’,” Jomshof tweeted. “A dialogue about how we democratise the Muslim world. Or what not a dialogue about Islam, this antidemocratic, violence-promoting and misogynistic religion/ideology, founded by the warlord, mass-murderer, slave trader and bandit, Mohammed.” 

After the tweet was published on Thursday morning, Johansson called for Jomshof to be removed as chair. 

“This is precisely the kind of rhetoric from the side of Sweden Democrats which is making the situation even more serious,” he said. “I think this is totally misguided, what Richard Jomshof has now done, and my feeling is that he cannot remain in his post.” 

The Social Democrats’ leader, Magdalena Andersson, also said that “Richard Jomshof should leave his position as chair of the foreign policy comittee”, saying that he had “was going into a direct polemic with the Muslim world”. 

The exchange came as the Social Democrats have doubled down on their criticism of the government for its slow reaction to the Quran burning crisis, with Johansson accusing Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of trying to “handle communication via Instagram from his hammock”. 

After the Social Democrats this week began to criticise the government for its slow response to the crisis, the country’s Civil Defence Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin held a press conference on Wednesday in which he accused Russia of inflaming the crisis through a disinformation campaign. 

Kristersson followed up with a post on Instagram in which he said he had met Charlotte von Essen, the head of Sweden’s Säpo security police for an update on the situation. 

 
 
 
 
 
View this post on Instagram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by Ulf Kristersson (@kristerssonulf)

Sweden’s foreign minister Tobias Billström on Thursday briefed the parliament’s foreign policy committee on the actions the government was taking to contain the fallout from the Quran-burning protests. 

Johansson said that if the Social Democrats had been in power, he believed the response to the crisis would have been quicker and more decisive. 

“There would have been a full response, with press conferences with the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Justice Minister, if not daily then nearly daily. When you have such crises, you need to be present, it’s the most important thing,” he said.

“Handling communication via Instagram from your hammock isn’t good enough when we are in a situation this serious. What’s needed is for the prime minister to show leadership and answer all the questions more and more people are asking.” 

 

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INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won’t spark a government crisis

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 18 May 2024 09:22 CEST
Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won't spark a government crisis

Hej,

News that the Sweden Democrats are operating a far-right troll factory – which among other things the party uses to smear political opponents as well as its supposed allies – has caused probably the biggest rift yet between them and the three other parties that make up Sweden’s ruling coalition.

The leaders of the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals all strongly criticised the Sweden Democrats’ blatant violation of the so-called “respect clause” in their Tidö collaboration agreement – the clause that states that the four parties should speak respectfully of each other in the media.

But after crisis talks held on Thursday, the conflict appears to be dying down.

The Sweden Democrats hit out strongly at the TV4 Kalla Fakta documentary where the troll factory was revealed, calling it a smear campaign and disinformation, but simultaneously went as far as to confirm that they do run anonymous social media accounts for which they refused to apologise.

They did say sorry to the Tidö parties for including them in the smear campaigns, and promised to remove some of the posts that had offended the other three parties, plus reassign a couple of members of staff to other duties until they’ve been given training on the Tidö “respect clause”.

But that doesn’t remove the fact that they vowed to continue the anonymous social media accounts whose existence they had prior to the documentary consistently denied, or the fact that some of the social media posts shared not only vague anti-immigration content, but white power propaganda.

The Liberals took the row the furthest, with Liberal leader Johan Pehrson describing people in his party as skitförbannade – pissed off as hell. He said ahead of the crisis meeting that they would demand that the Sweden Democrats cease all anonymous posting, which the latter rejected.

The party had two choices: walk out of the government collaboration and possibly spark a snap election, or walk back its strong words ahead of the meeting and wait for it to blow over.

They chose a kind of middle way, and called for an inquiry to be launched into banning political parties from operating anonymous social media accounts. The Social Democrats immediately accused the Liberals of trying to “bury the issue in an inquiry” – a classic Swedish political method of indecisive conflict avoidance which the Social Democrats themselves are well familiar with.

The Christian Democrats and Moderates both said that the Sweden Democrats had accepted their criticism and welcomed the party’s reshuffling of staff within its communications department, adding that it still had to prove its commitment to the Tidö agreement going forward.

So why isn’t this causing a bigger government crisis?

We asked Evelyn Jones, a politics reporter for the Dagens Nyheter daily, to come on the Sweden in Focus podcast to explain it to us:

“The Sweden Democrats are the biggest party in this coalition, even though they’re not part of the government. So the government really needs them. It’s hard for them to just stop cooperating with the Sweden Democrats,” she said.

“The cooperation between the government parties and the Sweden Democrats has been going pretty smoothly since the last election – more smoothly than a lot of people thought. This is probably the biggest crisis so far, but how big it is, is hard to say.”

You can listen to the full interview with her and the rest of the Sweden in Focus podcast here. 

In other news

If you are a descendant of a Sweden-born person and would like to find out more about them, there are ways to do that. I wrote this week about how to research your Swedish ancestry.

That guide was prompted by my interview with the chair of a community history group in a small parish in north-central Sweden, which has tried to get to the bottom of rumours that US mega star Taylor Swift’s ancestors hail from their village. I had so much fun writing this article.

The EU elections will be held on June 9th, but advance voting begins next week in Sweden. And poll cards are already being sent out, so if you’re eligible to vote you should receive yours soon.

Sweden’s consumer price index fell to 3.9 percent in April, below 4.0 percent for the first time in two years, reinforcing predictions that the central bank will keep lowering interest rates.

Sweden’s four-party government bloc has broken with the other parties in a parliamentary committee on public service broadcasting, adding what the opposition complains are “radically changed” proposals. How shocking are they?

Many people move to Sweden because of their partner’s career. Perhaps you’re one of these so-called “trailing spouses”. I’ve been asking readers in this situation how they’re settling in, and will have an article for you next week. There’s still time to answer our survey to share your experience.

Thanks for reading.

Have a good weekend,

Emma

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.

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