Swedish Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin was forced to seek shelter in Stockholm’s Parliament House after being harassed by pro-Palestinian activists.
Bohlin described the Monday incident on X/Twitter, saying he had been attending an event with the Moderate Party parliamentary group at the Riksdag parliament building and was about to walk home when a “group of people with antisocial dominance behavior began following [him, which resulted in him] simply not being able to get home.”
“In addition to screaming like idiots in my ears, most of them also had both video cameras and mobile phones, which in fact would have been used to document my way home and eventually my home address had I continued walking.”
“Instead, I had to turn back to the Riksdag building to get away. Right now, the Free Palestine Movement is preventing the democratically elected representatives of the people from moving about according to their own preferences. In my opinion, we should not allow this in our country,” Bohlin wrote.
He also shared a video from the incident in which the activists can be heard yelling slogans and insults at him.
A police spokesperson confirmed that a criminal investigation has been opened into the incident.
Bohlin told Sweden’s public radio channel, P1 Morgon, “It is unacceptable that we have a system where a seemingly lynch-mentality mob follows elected representatives in such a way that they cannot get to their homes. I think that this basically creates an environment for Swedish democracy that is harmful.”
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson swiftly took to social media to condemn the incident. “I have a message tonight to the Palestine activists in Stockholm: Sweden is a democracy, and you are welcome to express your opinion on the Middle East. But stop threatening Swedish politicians immediately.”
The prime minister denounced the activists as using “lynch mob tactics.”
Pro-Palestinian groups in Sweden criticize Swedish government
Prominent pro-Palestinian groups in Sweden have been critical of Bohlin and Kristersson, who they feel are not doing enough to act against Israel.
On Tuesday, Together for Palestine (the group to which the activists belonged) condemned “Sweden’s political elite” for “standing side-by-side with the terrorist state of Israel in its starvation and killing of Gaza’s children while cynically turning their backs on the people who once gave them power.”
The post specifically lambasted Kristersson as well as Bohlin for “hiding behind empty words about human rights.”
In a second post later on Tuesday, Together for Palestine condemned the accusations of “mob tactics,” saying that the terminology used was an attempt to “demonize and suspend peaceful protesters and to undermine hate, racism, and oppression.”
“The Palestinian movement will continue to stand on the streets until Sweden stops being complicit and takes a consistent stand for justice, freedom, and human rights for the Palestinian people,” it wrote.
Several Swedish politicians responded by criticizing the apparent absence of the security service to protect Bohlin.
“Where is the security service?!” Member of Riksdag (MP) Oliver Rosengren wrote on X.
Rosengren told the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet on Tuesday, “I think we should ensure that our ministers are safe. Obviously, one of our ministers was not safe yesterday, in which case, the authority that has that responsibility has failed.”
Others said that this forms part of a broader issue involving violence and threats against elected officials in Sweden.
In its Politicians’ Safety Survey 2023, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention reported that three out of 10 elected officials were subjected to threats, hatred, or violence in 2022.
In August, MP Fredrik Malm spoke of his experiences of violence from the pro-Palestinian community.
“Odenplan [an area in the city] is a fantastic place in Stockholm, and I happen to live a few hundred meters away from it. For the past 18 months, however, I cannot be in the center of my own neighborhood on weekends because of Islamist and communist manifestations against Israel.”
“The same applies to my work – the Riksdag. For a year, I have been forced to use other entrances because of hateful, Islamist, aggressive so-called demonstrators,” he added.
“My simple conclusion is that the Palestine movement in Sweden is violent, antisemitic, and Islamist.”