BBC puts Jimmie Åkesson in the hotseat
The Local is not responsible for the content of blog comments.
Many Swedes tuned into to Wednesdy morning parliamentary debate about extremism in the Swedish Riksdag. Requested by the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, the debate gave party leader Jimmie Åkesson a chance to make his case about the ties between immigration and Islamic extremism.
While Åkesson maintained his composure on Wednesday, he appeared somewhat less polished during an interview with the BBC which aired the day before.
Are British journalists just tougher than those in Sweden, or is Åkesson just less adept at making his case in English?













































January 26th, 2011 at 6:18 pm
He doesn’t seem at all confident, does he? But most BBC interviewers are very determined and refuse to be led stray from the subject they wish to pursue, so that the evasiveness of politicians is revealed.
I can’t believe how ignorant some people are. To say that all muslims are violent is like saying that all germans were members of the Bader Meinhof.
January 28th, 2011 at 9:52 am
I have been hearing about this guy and was a bit worried that he would be a charismatic leader that can attract crowds behind his racist ideals.
Watching the Hard Talk, I’m very much relieved :)
January 28th, 2011 at 6:23 pm
The BBC (Bring Back Communism) has a globalist, leftist agenda. It is a shame that Eurpeans are looked at as extremist for demanding that THEIR nations, and that of their ancestors, not be overrun by other cultures and peoples. It is just common sense. Mr. Akesson is a true patriot, pure and simple.
January 28th, 2011 at 7:10 pm
You do not expect a narrow minded fellow like Jimmy to be fluent in a global language like English. Fluency in a second or more languages is a form of potrayal of mindset and Jimmy being a guy whose mind is limited only within the borders of Sweden cannot of course be eloquent in an international language like English.
January 29th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
It sounded to me like he was trying to understand the questions being asked. He stated his case: he believes that immigration should be limited because immigrants are not integrating into Swedish society, but developing “parallel societies” which create tension within Sweden as a whole, and he offered Muslim immigrants as an example because they constitute the largest subset of Swedish immigrants. These were his words.
The “interviewer” heard that he wanted to “stop Muslim immigration”. These were not his words, only the interviewer’s interpretation and what appears to be the interviewer’s agenda. Åkesson was then put on trial, and spent the rest of the interview defending himself against blanket accusations such as “You think all Muslims are violent” and “Members of your party have said some people are genetically predisposed to violence”.
Åkesson here can only respond in defence of the accusations, with facts such as “every political party has people with ultra-extremist views, and a small party trying to establish itself will have more visible ultra-extremists” and the fact that certain immigrant subsets commit a largely disproportionate amount of violence in Sweden. Again, a fact.
It’s a hallmark of the Beeb that they will solicit interviews from people who hold “unacceptable” viewpoints under the guise of sharing these viewpoints, then will turn on the interviewee with irrelevant and often fabricated personal attacks that must be responded to, lest the interviewee seem evasive. It’s a clever and unassailable interviewing tactic. Åkesson did well to keep his composure, particularly responding in a language that was not his native tongue. One may not like what he says, but his voice deserves to be heard in a democratic society such as Sweden’s.
February 7th, 2011 at 3:30 pm
No, all Muslims are not violent. However, their religion instructs them to be. Read the Koran. They are authorised to beat their women. They are told that any non-Muslim woman they can capture is OK for sex. They are told to fight against the unbelievers until there is no religion but Islam.
Jimmie was right on the crime statistics too. I actually think he did quite well for someone who does not have English as his first language. Good luck to him and to Sweden. With the ever-expanding ( should that be”exploding”?)Muslim population that your quisling politicians have imported, you’re going to need it.
April 11th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
Or that all Germans were Nazis when in fact the maximum vote they received was 44% in 1933.
April 30th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
I think this should be seen within the well known context of the BBC’s strong adherence to all things Politically Correct. While they see PC as the new writ in stone social morality we must all unquestioningly conform to – others recognise it for the socially divisive -Orwellian- programme it frequently proves to be.