HS Analysis | Threatened by a terrorist attack, Sweden’s energy is spent on internal bickering

Stockholm

Swedish now lives under the threat of a terrorist attack.

The security police Säpo said on Thursday that they will raise the threat level of terrorism to level four.

On a five-point scale, level four means the following:

High threat. The probability that the actors have a goal and the ability to carry out an attack is high. Threat level four requires that there is a concrete threat to Sweden.

Säpo’s manager Charlotte von Essen however, said that the threat level was not raised because of an individual threat, but that it was an overall assessment.

Sweden’s security situation has been deteriorating for a long time. It is caused, among other things, by false information that is spread about Sweden in Muslim countries. In the background, there may be hybrid campaigns by governmental entities.

The last time the threat level was level four in 2015–2016. At that time, the terrorist organization Isis called for terrorist acts in Europe. Attacks took place in Paris, Berlin and Copenhagen, among others. At the same time, Sweden had received a large number of refugees from Islamic countries.

In April 2017, a terrorist attack took place in Stockholm. A man who had sworn allegiance to ISIS drove a truck onto busy Drotninggatan, killing five people.

Today’s threat is also associated with Islamist terrorism.

An image of Sweden as a country hostile to Islam has been created in Arabic-speaking countries. Sweden is not that kind of country, the country’s government has tried to communicate, but has not succeeded.

On Sunday, the terrorist organization al-Qaida called for revenge attacks against Sweden and Denmark due to the Koran burning incidents in those countries. On the same day, Britain also updated its travel information about Sweden.

According to the British Foreign Office, terrorists are now likely to try to strike in Sweden.

Prime Minister of Sweden Ulf Kristersson already said in July that the security situation is the most serious since the Second World War. According to Kristersson, Russia is also spreading false information about Sweden in the Arabic-speaking world, according to which the Swedish government encourages, for example, the burning of Korans.

On Thursday, Säpo confirmed that the threat to Sweden is now higher than before.

Threatening acts have already been seen outside of Sweden. The Swedish embassy in Baghdad, Iraq was set on fire, and in Beirut, Lebanon, a Molotov cocktail left as a cobbler was thrown at the entrance of the Swedish embassy.

Security discussion is busy in Sweden.

On Thursday – even before Säpo’s press conference – Dagens Nyheter published the articlewhere terrorism experts give citizens instructions on how to prepare.

“I myself am on my guard in the subway and would not wear headphones on a busy street. It’s good to keep an eye on the environment so that you have time to react if something happens,” instructed, for example, a lecturer at the National Defense University Evin Ismail.

Now the instructions are shared in other media as well. Amusement park Gröna Lund said that they are strengthening security measures.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson encouraged Swedes to be vigilant. If you see something suspicious, you must report it to the police. At the same time, normal life should be continued.

in Sweden concern for national security has also been linked to internal political struggles that have long roots.

The discussion has focused on one politician in particular, the Sweden Democrats to Richard Jomshof.

On Monday, Sweden’s opposition parties demanded Jomshof’s resignation as chairman of the legal committee, because the opposition believes that Jomshof’s actions endanger Sweden’s national security.

The Sweden Democrats is not part of Sweden’s right-wing government, but the party is its most important support party, without which the government would not be able to stand.

According to the opposition, Jomshof’s speeches about Islam incite the threat of Islamist terrorism to Sweden. Among other things, Jomshof has called for the burning of Korans and called a prophet Mohammed a mass murderer.

According to Jomshof and his supporters, Jomshof has not endangered Sweden’s security. He is just using and defending his freedom of speech, which Jomshof’s critics are trying to curtail, according to supporters.

But who is Richard Jomshof and what is his impact on Swedish security?

Richard Jomshof, 54, is a key politician of the Sweden Democrats, who has become known especially as a harsh critic of the Islamic faith and extremism.

Jomshof’s critics, on the other hand, have called him a racist and a hate speaker. In Arabic in the media he has been described as an extreme rightist.

Jomshof is one of the four politicians who can be considered to have created the core of the Sweden Democrats and grown the party to greatness.

This group known as the “gang of four” also includes Jimmie Åkesson, Mattias Karlsson and Björn Söder, all of whom are still in prominent positions in the party. Åkesson is the chairman of the party.

Jomshof has been a member of the party since 1999 and has sat in the Diet since 2010. He is a teacher by training.

Before his political career, Jomshof was a musician in a band called Elegant Machinery. Founded in 1988, the band has achieved success both in Sweden and internationally.

Prototypes of bands that play synthpop include, for example, the British Depeche Mode.

Jomshof is still involved in the music video released by the band in 2008.

The group has broken up a couple of times, but still continues its activities. It has been rumored that political differences were behind the band’s breakup, but Jomshof has denied this.

Jomshof’s father and grandparents moved to Sweden from Finland in the 1960s.

Jomshof’s first name is Lohikoski, but he has said that his Finnish name was lost after his parents’ divorce. Jomshof told In an interview with Sveriges Radio Finska that he is considering taking back his original name as a so-called middle name.

Jomshof has worked in the Sweden Democrats, among other things, as party secretary and education and legal policy representative.

Opposition to Islam is at the core of his political career. It has also led to a lot of uproar, although Jomshof has consciously tried to avoid uproar as well.

In 2015, Facebook discussions of an internal group of the Sweden Democrats came to light, in which Jomshof urged the party to adapt its rhetoric to the prevailing situation.

“Because Sweden is not Hungary, because we are not in government (yet) and because the Swedish media does not work in the same way as the Hungarian media, we have to adapt to this reality. This means, above all, that we have to adapt our rhetoric to the prevailing situation,” Jomshof instructed According to Aftonbladet.

In 2021, Jomshof called Islam a “disgusting ideology and religion” in SVT’s program. After receiving criticism for his comments from, among others, the prime minister at the time From Stefan Löfven Jomshof said he doesn’t care what the prime minister thinks.

Later Jomshof explainedthat his purpose was to speak of Islamism as an extremist movement, not Islam as a religion.

According to Jomshof, the government led by the prime minister pursued the cause of the Islamists. In addition, he said that members of the Prime Minister’s party, the Social Democrats, were Islamists.

In May of last year, he called the Prophet of Islam on Twitter Mohammed as a mass murderer and slave trader, among other things. The then chairman of the Center Party Annie Loöf criticized Jomshof’s speeches as racist.

of Jomshof the line has not changed over the years.

Earlier this year, he commented on the burning of Korans, saying that if they make people angry, a hundred more should be burned.

At the end of July, Jomshof called In the X message service (former Twitter) prophet Muhammad again as a mass murderer and slave trader, among other things.

According to Jomshof, Sweden should defend freedom of speech and democracy, which includes criticism of Islam and the burning of Korans.

The Swedish government has said that it strives for dialogue with the Islamic world. At the same time, the government is considering amending the Ordinance Act, with which it could intervene in the burning of Korans.

Instead, Jomshof would like to have a discussion with the Islamic world about how to “democratize the Muslim world”.

Swedish no common ground has been found in the security discussion.

For example, Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet, Dagens Industri and Svenska Dagbladet have published editorials demanding the resignation of Richard Jomshof as committee chairman.

“Sweden Democrats made us a target for terrorists,” headlined Aftonbladet’s editorial on Monday, listing the anti-Islamic actions and speeches of the Sweden Democrats.

“The conclusion is simple: if the Sweden Democrats and the party’s network had not taken this up and strengthened such a development, nothing would have happened,” writes Aftonbladet.

Dagens Nyheter, on the other hand had a different opinion.

DN’s Wednesday editorial criticized Aftonbladet’s editorial:

“With the same logic, cartoonists can be blamed for the terrorist act against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo,” DN wrote.

According to DN, those accusing the Sweden Democrats are barking up the wrong tree. Isn’t there a reason to also look at the political and religious leaders of the Middle East, who cynically and mainly for internal political reasons encourage violence against Sweden, DN writes.

Sweden has freedom of speech, which also allows stupid behavior, the paper interprets.

Government is in a difficult place.

It is clear that the speeches of the Sweden Democrats complicate the relations between Sweden and Muslim countries. However, the government would not be able to stand without the Sweden Democrats, and at the same time the government must defend freedom of speech, which also allows the burning of Korans.

In addition to everything, a terrorist attack that could threaten Sweden should be prevented and Turkey should be persuaded to accept Sweden’s NATO membership. Of course, Turkey has demanded Sweden to prevent the burning of Korans.

If behind all this is a hybrid operation against Sweden, it seems to be working.

On Friday, another demonstration will be organized in Stockholm. Protesters plan to burn a Koran in front of the Iranian embassy.