Sweden eyes crackdown after pro-Palestinian protests target ministers
After ministers were confronted outside parliament, political leaders across Sweden call for stricter protest laws to curb escalating threats and disruptive behaviour
Sweden’s government is weighing tougher protest laws, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Monday, after pro-Palestinian demonstrators confronted ministers outside parliament last week.
Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer the same day convened parliamentary group leaders along with police and security chiefs to discuss the incidents.
“There are clear reasons to review whether this system works properly. We cannot have all the world’s conflicts playing out on Swedish streets,” Kristersson told reporters.
The debate flared after demonstrators last week followed Defence Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin from parliament, shouting and acting in what officials described as a threatening way. Similar protests in Gothenburg and Malmö targeted Jewish minorities, which Kristersson called “completely unreasonable”.
Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch and the party’s MEP Alice Teodorescu Måwe called for tougher measures in an op-ed for Svenska Dagbladet, branding the protests part of a “radical Palestinian movement”. They proposed that individuals engaging in “antisocial dominance behaviour” should face restraining orders and bans from public spaces.
Opposition leader Magdalena Andersson of the Social Democrats also condemned the incidents. “Sweden has strong freedom of assembly, but what happened with Bohlin was unacceptable. It is ultimately the police’s responsibility to ensure safety in public spaces, even during demonstrations,” she told the Swedish press.
(de)
