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Top Sweden Democrat shared 'Swedes are white' song

The Local Sweden
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Top Sweden Democrat shared 'Swedes are white' song
Elisabeth Peterson at a conference for pensioners in March. Photo: Facebook/Sweden Democrats

One of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats’ party’s top municipal candidates in the coming election shared a song on Facebook with the chorus “Swedes are white and the country is ours”, Sweden’s Aftonbladet newspaper has reported.

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Elisabeth Peterson, who is second on the party’s candidate list for the municipal council in the city of Växjö, laughed when confronted by the newspaper about sharing the song this February. 
 
The song is by Kiwi, a self-described 'nationalist' who has collaborated with the white power label Midgård records and had his music played on the far-right website Nordfront.se.   
 
When asked about what constituted "a Swede”, Peterson said she would exclude any recent immigrants to the country. 
 
“You should be Swedish, born Swedish and have Swedish parents,”  she told the newspaper. 
 
The Sweden Democrats’ leader Jimmie Åkesson has repeatedly claimed that his party’s nationalism is not ethnocentric, and that even people born abroad can become ’Swedish’ if they adopt the national culture. 
 
“Swedishness is open, you should be able to become Swedish even if you weren’t born in the nation of Sweden,” he said on Swedish Radio last week, although he added that it can take a long time, perhaps generations, before this happens. 
 
As well as campaigning for election, Peterson is secretary of the party board in Växjö and its spokesperson on education. 
 
Henrik Gustafsson, from the party’s press department, said that the party planned to investigate Peterson. 
 
“We have grounds to investigate this issue according to our working practices and internal routines,” he said. “Our membership committee is going to take this issue further.” 
 
The party’s local chairman, Tobias Lindgren, also distanced himself from Peterson’s actions. 
 
”This is unacceptable and in no way corresponds to the party’s views about open Swedishness, the principle of assimilation, or that we believe, are working for, and hope that people who come to Sweden can also become part of the society,” he said. 
 

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