The Sweden’s government causes temporary closure of the Swedish Democrats’ (Sverigedemokraterna) website due to their publishing of the Mohammed cartoons. According to the Swedish newspaper The Local:
“The website of the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) reopened on Friday morning, after the far-right party removed drawings of the prophet Muhammad. The site had been taken down by its hosting company after requests from Sweden’s foreign ministry and security service, Säpo.The hosting company, Levonline, says its block on the Sweden Democrats’ site and that of its newspaper SD-Kuriren remains in place. The party’s secretary, Björn Söder, says the site has been reopened by moving it to another server, although the pictures of Muhammad have been removed.
“We have done this with the safety of Swedish citizens abroad in mind,” Söder said.At the time of writing, however, the site was not loading.Söder had been contacted on Thursday afternoon by Levonline’s deputy CEO Anna Larsson, who told him that threats had been received against her company and its staff and she therefore wanted him to move his party’s website.“It didn’t sound plausible that threats would have been made against a website hosting company and its staff – the threats should really have been made against us, who published the pictures, “ said Söder.“I was later told by a journalist at Dagens Nyheter that [Larsson] had changed her story, and more or less admitted that the foreign ministry and Säpo had been applying pressure.”
Sweden was ranked ninth in Freedom House’s 2005 rating for press freedom, how far will it drop due to Stockholm’s interference? KGS
