Stockholm (dpa) – Sweden’s neo-nazis, who do not shy from violence against foreigners, homosexuals and anyone else they dislike, are on the rise.
Radical right-wing activists are becoming “increasingly rougher, more brutal and more dangerous”, according to press reports following a series of violent attacks that claimed three lives over the past year.
Goteborgs Posten newspaper says that of 297 people arrested by police after riots at the 1997 neo-nazi Brottby rock concert, 60 had committed further violent acts that had brought into effect the suspended sentences they had received.
Most cases involved attacks on foreigners, homosexuals and other neo-nazi target groups. One of the 297 arrested at Brottby was a member of the gang that murdered the Stockholm trade unionist Bjorn Soderberg at his front door in an execution-style attack.
Another was involved in a bank robbery in which two policemen died in a hail of gunfire loosed by the fleeing neo-nazis.
These two crimes, together with a car bomb aimed at the journalist Peter Karlsson, in which he was seriously injured, have led to strong reaction from government, police authorities and the public alike.
Tens of thousands of Swedes went onto the streets, among them leading politicians, to protest at right-wing violence, and the four biggest newspapers published the photographs of 62 members of the neo-nazi groups in a “name and shame” action.
The mostly young people either had convictions for violent crime, were facing charges or were referred to as involved in “active incitement”.
The social democrat government of Goran Persson has ignored widespread demands for organisations like the National Socialist Front and the Aryan Brotherhood to be banned. They have active membership estimated between 800 and 2,000 people.
Observers tend to the view that things have gone quiet on the right-wing front recently for tactical reasons, following the massive public protest that led to neo-nazis losing their jobs, being excluded from trade unions and being ostracised where they lived.
Observers of the right wing warn against dismissing the neo-nazis as loud-mouthed, beer-swilling, shaven-headed idiots. In fact they have a reliable source of income from White Power Music that propagates racist prejudice ideas.
Among supporters of the right wing there are those who aim to live like “normal young Swedish people”, despite their hatred of foreigners and their tendency to violence, the Goteborgs Posten said, on the basis of numerous interviews with those involved.
The Swedish secret service said in its recently published summer report on “Crimes against Internal Security in 1999” that only 13 per cent of the 2,703 acts of violence with xenophobic or similar motives committed last year were perpetrated by neo-nazis.
“The majority was characterized by everyday racism, and involved people who were not ideologically committed right-wing extremists or supporters of White Power,” the report said.
The service noted that the number of attacks on foreigners continued the rising trend shown since 1997, but expressed satisfaction that the rise was “considerably down”.
The Persson government has reacted to the right-wing violence with a massive information campaign on the Holocaust in which millions of Jews lost their lives in the 1940s. Persson has had documentation prepared which is distributed free to schools and other interested parties.
He also arranged a Holocaust Summit in Stockholm, leading to an invitation to address the U.S. Congress in Washington in spring.
Nevertheless, Swedish newspapers have repeatedly reported that local politicians and their families have received death threats and been forced to go into hiding, and Swedish journalists are beginning to use pseudonyms when reporting on right-wing violence.
