Swedish Nazi group hails Trump in largest demo yet
Published: 12 Nov 2016 15:21 GMT+01:00
Sweden’s neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement mounted the biggest march in its history on Saturday, with its leadership saying the election of Donald Trump in the US marked the start of a world revolution.
Police in Stockholm seized five neo-Nazis and detained 20, as an estimated 600 far-right demonstrators marched from the central Kungsträdgården park to Mynttorget, the square where Sweden’s parliament is based in historic Gamla Stan.
“A number of people have been held. They were aggressive at one of our barriers,” Kjell Lindgren, a press spokesman for the Stockholm police said of those arrested.
He said that police had registered two cases of violent rioting, which carries a maximum four-year sentence.
According to a reporter from the anti-Nazi Expo magazine, Per Öberg, the Nazi group’s press chief, told the gathered crowd that Donald Trump’s election was a sign that a world revolution was beginning.
Also speaking was Vera Oredsson, a lifelong Nazi who was a member of the Hitler youth as a child growing up in Nazi Germany, and Fredrik Vejdeland, the group’s head of strategy.
According to Expo, Vejdeland expressed his support for a proposal to break up Bonnier, the media empire which owns the Dagens Nyheter, Expressen, Sydsvenskan and Dagens Industri newspapers, and the the TV4 television network.
Bonnier is controlled by the Bonniers, one of Sweden’s richest Jewish families.
According to Expo, when Vejdeland began talking the crowd began to chant “Hang them, hang them”.
The Swedish police said counter protestors pelted the neo-Nazis with snowballs and other objects, but no one appeared to have been hurt.
“A lot of loose objects, including snow, ice, bangers and fireworks of various kinds have been thrown,” Lindgren said. “I have not heard that anyone has been harmed, but it is possible that they have been.”
Roads were blocked and bus traffic affected in parts of central Stockholm as a result of the demonstration, which was set to continue until about 15.30.