Friday, August 21, 2009
Here's a reminder: Sweden shuts website over cartoon
The Swedish government has moved to shut down the website of a far-right political party's newspaper over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
The site's host, Levonline, pulled the plug on the website of the Swedish Democrats' SD-Kuriren newspaper after consulting with the government.
It is believed to be the first time a Western government has intervened to block a publication in the growing row.
Kuriren editor Richard Jomshof said the government was breaking the law.
"We have to do something about it. This is illegal. They can't do this just because we are a small magazine," he told the BBC News website...
...Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds described Kuriren's move as "a provocation" by "a small group of extremists".
"I will defend freedom of the press no matter what the circumstances, but I strongly condemn the provocation by SD-Kuriren. It displays a complete lack of respect," she said in a statement.
Site back up
Levonline CEO Turkel Nyberg told the BBC News website his company had pulled the plug on the site after discussions with the foreign ministry and the security police.
"It seemed like it could be a bad for us and for others to have the site up. The problem was the content, which was these Muhammad pictures," he said.
He said he had been told by the government that Arab media were carrying reports about SD-Kuriren's call for cartoons about Muhammad.
Sweden - which opposed the war in Iraq and is a leading donor to the Middle East - has largely avoided becoming the target of Muslim anger over the cartoons...
So I guess if Jews actually kidnapped people and stole their organs, the Swedes would be too nervous to write about it, but because they know damn well they don't, it's easy to be a bully.
The whole thing has taken a bizarre, but predictable, turn with the newspaper, and the Swedish Government itself, now taking on the role of sad, beleaguered defenders of free speech. Jonathan Tobin has a good run-down, here: Swedish Editor Is No Raoul Wallenberg.
Here's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt's blog wherein he presumes to lecture everyone, particularly the Israelis, on the concept of freedom of the press. It's a Google translation, but you can get the picture. This is hardly a brave stand since no one is asking Sweden to compromise free speech. In fact, it would be brave if they actually stood for free speech and got rid of their various hate crimes and incitement to insult and whatnot laws... Lieberman is exactly right, that this sort of cowardly unwillingness even to express an opinion is reminiscent of another time. Even if it were improper for a government entity to express an opinion, that certainly doesn't make them heroic in any way (certainly not in this case, unlike some others we could name -- and did, at the top of this post), and there is no excuse for Aftonbladet's editor, Jan Helin, who, according to Tobin, is now claiming to be the victim of anti-Semitic imagery:
...in an attempt to blame the victims of his libel for having the chutzpah to denounce it, Helin invokes the more familiar language of Israel-bashers: "It's deeply unpleasant and sad to see such a strong propaganda machine using centuries-old anti-Semitic images in an apparent attempt to get an obviously topical issue off the table."
So, according to Helin, it is Israel, which he accuses of killing children and then cannibalizing their bodies, that is invoking anti-Semitic imagery...
Get it? Some people don't want the issue of organ theft looked into, so they are dredging up anti-Semitic imagery to make the issue go away. You can't make this stuff up.
Actually, if you read to the end of the article you cite, the SD-Kuriren actually never went down.
From the 2006 article:
Ah, the courageous Swedes. Speaking truth to power, yet again.
Anybody want to buy an '87 Saab 900? Good condition. Cash for clunkers is closed for business....
#1, I'm not sure whether they were successful or not is actually relevant. I said they "moved" to do it. The fact that they had a backup server hardly exonerates the Swedish Government. The link text is the title of the BBC article, btw.
Just to set the record straight: Laila Freivalds was sacked a few weeks later for her involvement in closing down that website, as it was a clear violation of the freedom of the press. (see wikipedia)
It's not likely the current government will do anything like that ago, when a foreign minister was forced to resign for interfering with the press just a few years ago.
Actually, if you read the article, the site *was* taken down, then later restored. And if you read other articles, you find out that it was restored without the cartoons!