Sweden Democrats suspend official for insulting comments about Anne Frank
A Sweden Democrats official has been suspended by the far-right party for making degrading comments about Anne Frank.
In an Instagram posting that has now been deleted, Rebecka Fallenkvist called the Jewish teenage diarist “immoral”, among other things, according to Swedish media.
Anne Frank, who wrote a diary while in hiding in Amsterdam before she was captured, died aged 15 in Nazi Germany’s Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in February 1945.
The posting by Fallenkvist, a 26-year-old head of television programming for the Sweden Democrats, prompted strong reactions from Jewish groups and the Israeli ambassador, Ziv Nevo Kulman, who tweeted: “I strongly condemn this despicable insult, disrespectful of the memory of Anne Frank.” His posting included what appeared to be a screenshot of Fallenkvist’s Instagram post.
The Sweden Democrats’ media director, Oskar Cavalli-Bjorkman, told the Swedish news agency TT that the party would take Fallenkvist’s “insensitive and inappropriate” comments seriously and launch an internal investigation.
Sweden Democrats was founded in the 1980s by people who had been active in rightwing extremist groups, including neo-Nazis. The party emerged as Sweden’s second-largest party in the 11 September election under the leadership of Jimmie Åkesson.
On Friday, three Swedish centre-right parties agreed to form a coalition government with the support of the Sweden Democrats, which has moved towards mainstream politics but retains a hard line on immigration.