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POLITICS

Swedish lawmakers hand government extra powers to fight coronavirus

The Swedish government has been granted extraordinary powers to quickly curb the spread of the new coronavirus without prior parliamentary approval.

Swedish lawmakers hand government extra powers to fight coronavirus
The Swedish parliament has reduced the number of MPs during the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Ali Lorestani/TT

The new law grants the Social Democrat-led government the ability to temporarily close businesses, limit public gatherings or shut down ports and airports, as well as a number of other measures.

“It is important that the government has access to more tools in the fight against the coronavirus if they should prove necessary,” Social Democrat MP Kristina Nilsson told parliament during a Thursday debate.

After objections from opposition parties, the bill was amended so that if the government decides to enforce any measure quickly without going through parliament, lawmakers can vote to rescind the measure if they deem it unnecessary. And the government is only meant to take advantage of its new powers if new measures are so urgent that waiting for prior parliamentary approval would be near-impossible.

The new powers come into force on April 18th and last until the end of June.

The government is still prohibited from adopting measures that curtail rights guaranteed by the country's constitution, meaning it would still need to go through parliament to issue the type of curfews that have been imposed elsewhere in Europe.

However, so far the government has not pursued such measures, opting for a softer approach and calling for citizens to take responsibility to follow social distancing guidelines.

The government has banned gatherings of more than 50 people and barred visits to nursing homes.

On Thursday, the government also decided on a month-long extension of a ban on non-necessary travel to the country from outside the EU, in line with a joint EU decision.

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POLITICS

TikTok shuts down Sweden Democrats’ anonymous accounts

TikTok has closed down the Sweden Democrats’ anonymous accounts after a Swedish documentary revealed that the far-right party operated a secret social media troll farm.

TikTok shuts down Sweden Democrats' anonymous accounts

The documentary, by broadcaster TV4’s Kalla Fakta programme, identified 23 anonymous social media accounts controlled by the Sweden Democrats’ communications team.

Those included 13 accounts on Chinese-owned video hosting app TikTok, which have all been shut down, the platform confirmed to Swedish news agency TT on Monday.

TikTok declined to comment on why they had removed the accounts.

Sweden Democrat press officer Oskar Cavalli-Björkman said the party was trying to contact TikTok to find out why the accounts had been closed, but declined to comment further.

In the Kalla Fakta documentary, a reporter went undercover within the Sweden Democrats’ communications department. They revealed a number of things, including attempts at smear campaigns on politicians from other parties.

It also revealed a total of 23 different anonymous accounts spread across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, which are all run by the Sweden Democrats and also spread for example radical anti-immigration views.

These accounts have a combined 260,000 followers and published roughly 1,000 posts in the first three months of the year, which were viewed over 27 million times.

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