"Ms Freivalds was rounded on by the press when a far-right website was forced to close on 9 February, after a foreign ministry official contacted the site's hosting company."

Does anyone know whether any of the Swedish press that "rounded" on Freivalds for blocking the "far-right" website had the courage to publish the cartoons themselves?

Posted by: Howard, Fine & Howard at March 21, 2006 8:51 AM

Now this is sweet revenge. The swedes always complain about how 'xenophobic' we Danes are, yet they are so chicken scared of any free debate on this issue that they can't even tolerate the smallest fringe group to post the mohamad cartoons. They know there is a problem but they won't let the spirit out of the bottle.

Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds should have resigned because of this a long time ago, not (just) because she lied about her own involvement in closing down the website, but because it's a disgrace for a country like Sweden that claims to be a democracy, to crack down on the free exchange of opinions and free flow of information on the web.

I hate to say this about an scandinavia neighbour, but Sweden today is an authoritarian leftwing monolith and free speech is all but dead, except for squabble about futile issues.

Posted by: odin, king of gods at March 21, 2006 9:00 AM

Sweet Revenge but insufficient! Real justice would be Ms. Freivalds being stripped of her Swedish citizenship and being expelled to Sudan where she could be sold in a slave market to a rich Saudi. See how pro-Muslim she'd be then.

Posted by: Provoslavni at March 21, 2006 10:11 AM

Howard, Fine & Howard wrote: "Does anyone know whether any of the Swedish press that "rounded" on Freivalds for blocking the "far-right" website had the courage to publish the cartoons themselves?"

None of the mainsteram papers have printed them in Sweden, as a matter of fact I can't recall to have heard about ANY swedish media outlets at all who have published the cartoons.

Provoslavni wrote: "Sweet Revenge but insufficient! Real justice would be Ms. Freivalds being stripped of her Swedish citizenship and being expelled to Sudan where she could be sold in a slave market to a rich Saudi. See how pro-Muslim she'd be then."

No woman can possibly be fond of a woman-beater religion as Islam. Western women supporting Islam either don't know what they are doing or just simply don't have any solidarity with other women, especially those who are suffering under the yoke of Islam.

Posted by: odin, king of gods at March 21, 2006 10:37 AM

One for the Big Gipper. Or if you are astrologically rather than theologically inclined, One for the Big Dipper.

Posted by: Hugh at March 21, 2006 11:26 AM

The first sign of hope I have seen for Sweden in decades; because it is actual Swedes themselves managing to admit that even "far right" websites (who, in Sweden, might well turn out to be admirers of Bush and Blair) have a right to free speech. By contrast, less than a year ago, the Swedish Supreme Court quashed the conviction of Pastor Ake Green for "hate speech" for preaching a sermon about homosexuality that does nothing more than restate all classical Christian teachings on the matter. But what was so interesting was the reasoning of the learned judges: if we upheld this sentence, they said, no doubt the European Court would quash it on us on grounds of free speech. You could almost hear the frustration and gritted teeth: the Swedish judges really wanted to give Pastor Green a dose of the slammer for being a Christian, but they had come up agains the unpalatable fact that free speech was still acknowledged as a right among those backward South Europeans. You see where this is different? Swedes actually defending their own freedom of thought and speech, instead of swallowing it like a bitter medicine, is something new.

Posted by: Paolo at March 21, 2006 12:23 PM

Paolo;

I agree with you that it's uplifting to see this happening in Sweden. However I wouldn't get carried away by this apparent 'anti-dhimmitude' of the swedish press. Ms. Freivalds has been under pressure for quite some time now, especially for her incompetent way of dealing wiht the Tsunami-disaster where a lot of swedes perished. The website closure was just the last drop that made the glass spill over.

Posted by: odin, king of gods at March 21, 2006 1:50 PM

Ah yes, I see. Well, I will take my comfort whenever I can find it. Besides, who know, once the Swedish press and people begin to get used to the taste of freedom and free criticism, who know, they might even start thinking in more than one way.

Posted by: Paolo at March 21, 2006 2:16 PM

Paolo;

Let's hope that. May it be a snow-ball effect that goes on to be bigger end bigger...

Posted by: odin, king of gods at March 21, 2006 2:21 PM

Wow, elections in 6 months, how will the conservatives go ? Sweden needs a PM like you have in Denmark Odin !

Greetings from Australia Odin. How is our princess going ?

Posted by: PAS at March 21, 2006 5:03 PM

Greetings PAS!

You wrote: "Wow, elections in 6 months, how will the conservatives go ? Sweden needs a PM like you have in Denmark Odin !"

I think so too. I don't know enough about the right wing opposition parties in Sweden and their leaders to say if there is a potential Anders Fogh Rasmussen amongst them. The Swedish conservatives have also been very keen on avoiding any talk about muslims, scared of the prospect of a 'far-right' rival popping up, like the Danish Peopels Party, the Progress Party in Norway, Le Front Nationale in France ect.

I think that it would be wiser of them to break the taboo and face these issues head-on instead of dodging the debate. But unfortunately that's probably not going to happen, if I know my fellow scandinavians well enough...

Having said these things, there is actually a real chance that Perssons Socialdemocratic government will loose the elections. They have been in power since 1994 and after 12 years in power the swedes are tired of looking at the same old faces. As usually happens when one party had held power for very long, a certain fatigue with the politicians begins take effect. They are trailing behind in the polls.

"Greetings from Australia Odin. How is our princess going ?"

By all accounts she is just fine. After having her baby she has been taking it easy for a while. She's very popular here as a friendly, down to earth person. I'm not a monarchist myself, but I have the best impression of her. She is a great ambassador for her country (now, that's both of them!)

Doesn't she look happy:

http://www.krak.dk/grafik/kraktourist/royal_cph/_frederikogmary.jpg

Posted by: odin, king of gods at March 21, 2006 7:44 PM

Thanks Odin, yes, they always look happy in photos.

Posted by: PAS at March 21, 2006 9:53 PM

How did the Foreign Minister get to close the website? Wouldn't that have been the job of an Interior Ministry? Or is this just a case of the minister overstepping her authority, or even worse, doing something illegal?

Posted by: Infidel Pride at March 22, 2006 3:02 AM

Infidel Pride wrote: "How did the Foreign Minister get to close the website? Wouldn't that have been the job of an Interior Ministry? Or is this just a case of the minister overstepping her authority, or even worse, doing something illegal?"

Hard to say actually. I only know that it happened in collaboration with SÄPO, the Swedish secret service. Maybe she tipped of the serect service and they did the rest. In Sweden it's often hard to seperate the Socialdemocratic government and the state bureaucracy.

Posted by: odin, king of gods at March 22, 2006 3:22 AM