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Politics

Swedish neo-Nazis turn out for May Day parade

Published: 1 May 12 15:53 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/40574/20120501/

Several Swedish extreme-right groups have come out in force to demonstrate on May 1st, with police reporting disorder after clashes with extreme-left groups.

May 1st is a sacred day for the labour movement and according to tradition the Left and Social Democrat parties held parades in towns and cities across Sweden.

However this year the extreme-right Svenskarnas Parti (Party of the Swedes - SvP) have gathered in Eskilstuna south of Stockholm to voice their objections to the societal status quo.

Police spokesperson Frederick Wallén told news agency TT that the Eskilstuna event was characterized by disorderly behaviour involving counter-demonstrators.

"We can confirm that at least 50 or so counter-demonstrators threw stones, bottles and golf balls. As a result we expanded the cordoned off area and pushed them aside."

Wallén said that the police were not aware of any reported injuries.

"We estimate that there are currently about 50 from the Svenskarnas Parti in attendance and the counter-demonstrators number about 150-200. But 50 or so were obviously just here to fight."

The party sought permission to demonstrate in several towns across Sweden but settled in the end for Eskilstuna. This is the first time that an extreme-right organization has demonstrated in the city on May Day.

"As far as I know, we have not had any organizations linked to the white power movement demonstrating in Sörmland on May Day," Wallén said.

The nationalist National Democrats are furthermore planning meetings in Nykvarn, Alingsås, Heby and Södertälje.

While the day is typically dominated by followers of the Left and Social Democrats, and a plethora of other trade union-linked groups, it is not unheard of for right-wing extremists to join the labour day party, according to writer Anna-Lena Lodenius, who has spent several years studying Swedish extreme right.

"This has happened before. It's an attempt to try to prove themselves as a legitimate working class movement, they want to be seen as a people's party."

TT/The Local/pvs (news@thelocal.se)

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17:47 May 1, 2012 by calebian22
It is interesting that it was members of the left that got violent.
17:53 May 1, 2012 by apelsin000
Extremist hates extremist, it is that simple.
17:53 May 1, 2012 by Swedishmyth
Can someone tell me what, exactly, is "extreme-right" about these people? Are they fiscally laissez-faire?
18:18 May 1, 2012 by libertarianism
Re post 3, perhaps it was a typo/mistranslation for the extweme-white?
19:45 May 1, 2012 by Avidror
@ Swedishmyth

Neo-nazis are right-wing extremists.
20:35 May 1, 2012 by farmon
The party of the Swedes seems to be very patriotic and pro Swedish. I would like to see more of them.
20:45 May 1, 2012 by G Kin
Oh yea, the real Sweden in its colors.
21:41 May 1, 2012 by Rod Munch
No surprise at all that it's the left (anti-,west, anti-white) who was gettingviolent. They're mostly middle-eastern people.
22:11 May 1, 2012 by Kublai
I didn't use to like extreme right wing parties but after the last few years behaviour of muslim immigrants and left wing fascists I support every movement that wants law and order and wants to bring rapists and murders to justice (because the left wing parties don't, they defend every rape and murder in the country as long as it is perpetrated by an immigrant)
22:40 May 1, 2012 by Iraniboy
Hehe only 50 persons?!! If all Xenophobes and racists who regularly post here in thelocal.se forum buy a ticket and come to Sweden they will be more :D
23:02 May 1, 2012 by LuckotheeIrish1
Okay. 1. I am an American living in Sweden (3.5 years now), Eskilstuna to be specific.

That said. These numbers in this article are not accurate. It was around 400-500 anti-demonstrators, 200 demonstrators, 80+ cops, a lot of glass bottles, and some people even tried sicking their dogs on other people.

Oh and the anti-demonstrators...weren't a bunch of middle-easterners. I actually know several people who were injured and caught in the middle of everything. All white Swedish people.

I actually had no idea about this demonstration until I heard about the rioting (been busy moving this weekend). If I had known, I would have been out there protesting AGAINST the right wing neo-nazi nuts, right next to the other anti-demonstrators. Yes they have a right to demonstrate, as they applied for it. Doesn't mean the rest of us have to support or like that brainwash crap they try to peddle.
23:26 May 1, 2012 by Trenatos
Being a patriot does not mean one is a rasist.

These white-power people need to be shut down, they're not patriots, they're morons.

They have the right to be there on the street demonstrating, but as a former writer put it "Doesn't mean the rest of us have to support or like that brainwash crap they try to peddle."
00:39 May 2, 2012 by nathan45
First off these people where not calling them selves the Neo-Nazi party last time I checked and just because The Local is a bias left leaning website does not give them the right to publish things that are missleading. It is sure not the first time i have seen this.

I believe in a growing movement of people who support the best interest of the white race in Europe without promoting violence and hate. Just because you want a future for your culture and race where they are the majority in their own lands forever like the other races will get to enjoy does not mean you are a nazi or belive what they did was right.
02:03 May 2, 2012 by Eric1
The Left uses violence and the power of government to oppress those with whom they disagree politically.
03:31 May 2, 2012 by Rod Munch
If yougo to you tube and search "swedish nationalist fight back antifa 2012-05-01" you can see video of the protest. Interesting how the ethnic swedes on both sides were both reasonably well-behaved but the more "multicultural" people on the "anti-facist" side just couldn't resist the need to be violent. Check it out.
07:17 May 2, 2012 by Douglas Garner
Anyone who would call SvD patriotic would no doubt support Brevik as well. It is truly time to recognize that we live on One World... together. Our problems, challenges, and opportunities can no long be isolated to one country. Such narrowmindedness can only bring ruin to our planet and misery to humanity.
08:45 May 2, 2012 by rise
Lefties becomes insulting and frankly rude if you don't support their way of political correctness. For as long as you get in line and behave politically correct they leave you alone while pretending to be civil and righteous themselves. And then when everything seems calm lefties starts projecting their bad behavior at parties like SD. They hammer at SD, calls them things they are not, claiming things SD never have said et cetera. Lefties find it more comfortable for example to project racism of their own at someone else, making it "his/hers". Lefties simply are self-righteousness walking...

Left-demonstrators pick up violence, claiming it was the right-demonstrators who did it. A lefty is a hypocritical liar with a halo above the head.

I didn't vote for SD in the last election. But partly because of how lefties have been behaving against SD I probably will in the next election.
08:48 May 2, 2012 by djmarko
what race??? you mean the human race?? skin colour different perhaps but deep down most people share the same fears in life, growing up, getting a good job, good health, end of it, everyone is going to die one day irrespective of skin colour, think about that!!!!
09:35 May 2, 2012 by towns
@ djmarko

Humans are a species, not a race.
09:37 May 2, 2012 by cowboykodp
I love these counter-demonstrators. Brave MOFO's.

Had the Jews and regular Germans had the balls to fight back against the third reich, they would not have succeeded in their genocide.

As Iraniboy said, there could have been more demonstrators had some of our SD, Nazi supporters on this site showed up. Then they would have their heads bashed in too.

Oh well, next time.
09:47 May 2, 2012 by NikolaiiIV
"Just because you want a future for your culture and race where they are the majority in their own lands forever like the other races will get to enjoy does not mean you are a nazi or belive what they did was right." This is almost impossible in this era. Globalization is clearing borders all over the world, and of course the developed country are the main targets for all the people around. It is just the consequent of an action, the breach between the poor and the rich get bigger, so people start looking for new destinies. in all countries you find, at least, brushes of some other now.
11:46 May 2, 2012 by libertarianism
Is it common for there to be Soviet Union Stalin flags at May Day parades in Sweden (as in Stockholm recently)??
13:21 May 2, 2012 by Birger Johansson
Um, in regard to the status of the demonstrants as extreme-right, their symbol consists of two rhunic "s"(with one bar removed), the lower inverted.

People of the Nazi persuation cannot legally show traditional Nazi symbols in Sweden, but they have an affinity for logotypes that approximate the outlawed symbols -in this case the double rhunic "S", suitably modified for legal reasons.
15:47 May 2, 2012 by Spuds MacKenzie
t: I have no problem with any group that wants to keep the overflowing immigation of middle easterners in Sweden in check. Just because someone wants Sweden to have a white majority doesn't mean they are "nazis".
02:25 May 3, 2012 by Simon Österberg
Birger Johansson: The symbol is actually the rune called Jera with a meaning something like what you sow you harvest and have nothing to do with the germanic rune for the letter S.
02:44 May 3, 2012 by JoeSwede
I hear again and again about leftist demonstrators who act very violent. Until Sweden cracks down on this... democracy is repressed.

If you can't express your opinion then things are just not right. What a constipated situation. I guess intimidation of sorts...
07:50 May 4, 2012 by samwise
As a matter of fact, Nazi means national socialist party, the german Nazi movement started with a very close tie to the socialist labor unions. There's nothing right wing about it. Hitler stays true to nationalism and socialism, and we all know how that turns out. He's an evolutionists by the way.

I'm not equating the swedish nationalists to Nazi's, I reject the labels from the biased media.
23:50 May 4, 2012 by newyorkstockholm
I was raised in the States in a mostly Mexican American city, and whenever I came home upset for being teased by some kids, my mother would lovingly assure me, "don't let them bother you-- they're just ignorant."

I have a very hard time assigning "they're just ignorant" to narrow-minded Swedes. This is such a rich, educated society-- and everyone around the world has the false perception that it's the most advanced society's on earth. I certainly did, before I started spending lots of time in Sweden. There's simply no excuse for the overt and covert forms of racism I've seen here (and see on this site). The Mexican adolescents in my hometown-- their parents started from ZERO-- barely educated and poor. They were truly disadvantaged and marginalized themselves. Sweden is so confusing in this way. No excuse to be so retarded!! Sweden is continuing to fail in integrating people from different places. Ever seen The Wire?! Jesus. A kid that is raised in the drug infested ghetto will run the risk of being maladjusted her/his whole life. You put an immigrant from a war-torn country in a socialist housing block and marginalize them in your society-- well, no surprise there...you've got a lot of people who might not have the best tools to work with. Duh!

It may have more and more Fabrique bakeries, and cute little bourgeois restaurants and cafes popping up left and right-- but Stockholm-- you'll never be New York. People there have some notion of what it's like to be interesting. They just don't care where you come from, as long as you make their lives more dynamic just by being who you are. Stockholm is like a very beautiful but very boring princess with nothing much to say at the dinner table, unless you get her super wasted, then she just turns into an unsophisticated obnoxious teenager who shouts racial slurs.

I know, I need to change my username and move back to New York.
01:43 May 5, 2012 by Jan-Erik Janson
Probably no one remembers today but Hitler's NAZI was The National Socialists Workers Party that they really were against the free market Capitalism and religion in general and for workers rights. True they were racists and a dictatorship. But so was The Soviet Union who no one would think as right-wing. The Italian Fascists were also anti free market leftists. The Neo-Nazis may however be something else. If they really are like the Nazis they should be want to march on May Day
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