Sweden: Anti-NATO, Anti-Terror Law Demonstrations Take Place in Stockholm

I've long maintained that all the intelligent Swedes emigrated in the 19th century, leaving only the mentally unfit to breed. The insanity of the Swedish Left is proof positive!

From The European Conservative

By Robert Semonsen

The demonstration, “No to NATO, No Erdogan Laws in Sweden,” took place on Sunday, June 4th, despite calls from Ankara to ban it.

Two weeks after Bulgarian protestors vandalized an EU building in the capital city of Sofia during the anti-NATO March for Peace and Neutrality, hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Stockholm over the weekend to protest Sweden’s NATO bid and new anti-terror legislation, meant to address Ankara’s stated reasons for opposing Sweden’s accession into NATO.

The demonstration, titled “No to NATO, No Erdogan Laws in Sweden,” went ahead and took place on Sunday, June 4th, despite calls from Ankara to ban it. It was organized by the network Alliance Against NATO, which includes various pro-Kurdish groups, including the Rojava Committee, the daily newspaper Sydsvenska reports.

“They are after the Kurds in Sweden.” Tomas Pettersson, the spokesman for the Alliance Against NATO, told a reporter from Agence France-Presse (AFP) during Sunday’s demonstration. 

Pettersson added that the idea behind the new anti-terror legislation is “to have an arrest and a trial and a victim” so Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was reelected a little over a week ago, “will then let Sweden into NATO.” 

Earlier this last week, prior to the demonstration, Ankara expressed its disapproval over the scheduled protests, organized by groups close to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)—which the Turkish government has designated as a terrorist organization—

warning Sweden’s center-right coalition government against allowing “terrorists” to demonstrate.

A Turkish government spokesman last Tuesday, May 30th, said it was “completely unacceptable that PKK terrorists continue to operate freely in Sweden,” and called on Swedish authorities to ban the demonstration.

On Sunday’s protest, which began at 1:30 p.m. and saw around 500 people participate, demonstrators could be seen waving PKK flags, with many holding signs saying, “No to NATO” as they marched through the center of Stockholm to Mynttorget.

“We are here to tell Ulf Kristersson and Tobias Billström not to hand over politics to the dictatorship of Turkey, but it is up to the Swedish people to decide,” Daniel Riazat, Member of Parliament for the Left Party, said at the demonstration.

Daniel Riazat, a Member of Parliament for the Left Party, also spoke out against the anti-terror legislation, telling the TT news agency: “We are against the fact that Sweden has introduced Erdogan laws where they try to criminalize political groups, which have been praised until recently.”

“Terror legislation is on a new level. The sad thing is that they make it linked to Sweden becoming a member of NATO and that they let Erdogan decide what kind of policy Sweden should have in order to join a military alliance,” Riazat added.

Swedish government ministers have defended the legislation, with the justice minister last Friday refuting claims that it is an attack on freedom of speech. Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom (M), for his part, welcomed the new law and said it was the last step under an agreement signed with Turkey last year for Ankara to accept Stockholm’s NATO accession.

Over the weekend, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged Turkey to lift its veto on Sweden’s membership bid, which has been in place for months and months, saying that Stockholm’s entry into the military alliance “will make Sweden safer but also NATO and Turkey stronger.”

Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO members who have yet to ratify Sweden’s membership bid.