Far Right | The United States added the Nordic Resistance Movement to the same list as Hamas and ISIS – This is what it means

United States announced on Friday that he named the neo-Nazi group the Nordic Resistance Movement (PVL) as a terrorist group.

This means that motion was added to the same to the list with, among others, Hamas, which is gaining power in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah, which is active in Lebanon, Somalia’s Al-Shabaab, and the jihadist organization Isis.

At the same time, the United States added what it considered to be the leaders of PVL Tor Fredrik Vejdeland, by Pär Öberg and By Leif Robert Eklund to the list, which names several other people influential in extremist organizations, such as the one considered to be the leader of Hamas Ismail Haniya.

Listing based on the former president of the United States George W. Bush to the decree, which aims to weaken the financial support network of terrorists and terrorist organizations. Bush issued the order in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

Getting on the list means, for example, that all assets subject to US law are frozen. As a result, keeping accounts in US banks is almost impossible. Especially for an individual who has ended up on the list, the decision can be drastic, as the freezing of accounts can extend to his close circle.

American citizens or legal entities are also not allowed to have contact with those on the terrorist list. For example, they cannot transfer or receive funds from them.

It is a US national decision that binds US actors above all. There are still effects internationally as well, as many banks and financial players operate on the basis of the listing to avoid problems with the United States.

of the United States the Ministry of Foreign Affairs described on Friday in its announcement PVL being “Sweden’s largest neo-Nazi group with branches in Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland, where it has been banned since 2020”.

According to the US State Department, the movement’s violent activities are based on open racism, anti-immigration and anti-Semitism, and discrimination against sexual and gender minorities.

At the same time, the United States says that it is deeply concerned about the threat of racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism.

It added the first white supremacist extremist group, the Russian Imperialist Movement, to its terrorist list in 2020. Before that, the list was heavily focused on Islamist and far-left movements.

Swedish terrorism researcher Hans Brun tells For the Swedish public broadcasting company SVTthat the terrorist classification is an important legal tool for the US authorities, with which they can, for example, prevent certain people from entering the country.

In practice, the terrorist classification can have significant consequences for PVL members staying in the United States, says Brun to SVT.

“A person can very well be banned from entering the country or deported if the authorities can link him to a movement,” he says.

According to Bruni, the decision shows that the threat from the extreme right is taken very seriously in the United States, he tells anti-racism For Expo magazine.

Nordic the resistance movement started its activities in Sweden in 1997 under the name of the Swedish resistance movement. When it had sister movements in other Nordic countries, they united under the name Nordic resistance movement in 2016.

In Finland, the Supreme Court ordered PVL to be closed down in the fall of 2020. Even before that, the business had been temporarily banned.