Türkiye cancels visit of NATO hopeful’s defense minister
RT | January 21, 2023
Ankara has called off the planned visit of Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson, his Turkish counterpart, Hulusi Akar, revealed on Saturday. The move comes after members of the Kurdish community held an anti-Turkish protest in Stockholm.
“At this point, the visit of Swedish Defense Minister Jonson to Türkiye on January 27 has become neither important, nor meaningful. Therefore, we have canceled the visit,” Akar told reporters on Saturday. He added that his country was still “evaluating” how Sweden and Finland were fulfilling their obligations to Türkiye amid their bids to join NATO.
“We expect Sweden and Finland to do their homework,” the minister stated.
Jonson tweeted that the ministers “decided … to postpone the planned meeting in Ankara until later.”
Last week, Ankara summoned the Swedish ambassador after an effigy of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was hung upside down on a lamp post in the Swedish capital on January 12. Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom condemned the act as “abhorrent.”
However, the Swedish authorities rejected Ankara’s call for an investigation, saying that the protesters had not violated any laws. The move caused further outrage in Türkiye, which considers Kurdish political and militant groups, such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), terrorist organizations.
Relations between Sweden and Türkiye deteriorated further after the Nordic country’s police permitted Rasmus Paludan, an anti-Islam activist and leader of a minor far-right Danish party, Stram Kurs (Hard Line), to burn a copy of the Koran near the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. The police said the act falls under freedom of expression. This prompted the Turkish authorities to summon the Swedish envoy for the second time, local media reported on Friday.
Left-wing Swedish newspaper Flamman launched a competition for the best satirical drawing of Erdogan on Tuesday, with a prize of 10,000 krona ($971). The paper accused the Turkish president of “trying to pressure Sweden to deport Kurds and restrict the freedom of expression.”
The spat takes place as Sweden and Finland hope that Ankara will not block their path to become NATO members. Last year, Türkiye greenlighted the start of the accession process in exchange for the two Nordic countries addressing requests to extradite people with suspected ties to the PKK and similar groups.
Türkiye has since accused Sweden of not fulfilling its obligations under the NATO deal, as the country’s courts rebuffed some extradition bids.
Moscow: Sweden’s Refusal to Share Nord Stream Findings Suggests They’re ‘Hiding Something’
Samizdat – 14.01.2023
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman skewered Sweden for staying silent about the identity of the perpetrators of the notorious terrorist attack that crippled Russian revenues and European energy supplies.
Sweden’s refusal to disclose the results of its investigation into the terrorist attack that crippled the Nord Stream pipeline in September suggests Stockholm is “hiding something,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.
As one of the attack’s primary victims, Russia deserves answers, Zakharova told reporters at a Thursday briefing.
“The refusal of the Swedish side to respond on the merits to another request from the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office for legal aid in the criminal case on Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipeline damage in September 2022 is genuinely perplexing,” Zakharova said.
A message sent three months ago by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to the head of the Swedish government regarding “the need to conduct a comprehensive and open investigation” of the attacks with Moscow officials still “remains unanswered,” Zakharova explained, noting Sweden’s silence stood “in defiance of all the decorum of international diplomatic communication.”
“Stockholm explains its refusal by saying… that meeting the Russian request will allegedly ‘pose a security threat to Sweden,’” she noted.
“What are the threats to national security that Stockholm is talking about?” Zakharova asked.
“Who committed these sabotage and terrorist acts, who is behind them, who devised and implemented them – withholding the established facts irrefutably testifies to the obvious: the Swedish authorities are hiding something.”
Sweden invoked the same ‘national security’ justification in October when attempting to explain why it was unwilling to commit to a joint investigation on the Nord Stream attack alongside Germany and Denmark.
As the main recipient of Nord Stream’s affordable supply of Russian gas, Germany was arguably the prime beneficiary of the pipelines. But Moscow has also suffered serious economic damage as a result of the act of industrial sabotage.
“We consider ourselves to be the party that sustained material damage, to say nothing of losses,” Zarakhova explained.
As such, “we have the right to receive appropriate information, have the right to ask questions and demand an answer to them,” she said, adding “we must make sure that it doesn’t happen again in the future.”
Sweden to Nearly Double Annual Number of Military Conscripts
Samizdat – 09.01.2023
The Swedish government has decided to nearly double its annual number of military recruits to 10,000 to boost the country’s defense capabilities amid the Ukrainian conflict, Americain news agency reported on Monday.
In March 2017, Sweden resumed compulsory military conscription, which was abolished in 2010, citing the deteriorating security situation in the region.
As part of the plan to increase the number of conscripts, the government will ask the emergency agency to prepare training for young people who do not want to undergo military training, the report said, citing Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, adding that in the event of a military conflict, the conscripts will be asked to serve in municipal emergency services.
“The experiences from Ukraine paint a very clear picture, as emergency services face severe pressure in their work to protect civilians. Considering the security situation, this is an urgent measure to strengthen total defense capabilities,” Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin told reporters.
On May 18, three months after Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine, Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership. Their accession protocols have already been ratified by all NATO members except Hungary and Turkey.
Sweden Did *Better* Than Its Neighbours
BY NOAH CARL | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | JANUARY 4, 2023
Sweden’s decision not to lockdown in the spring of 2020 was variously described as “deadly folly” (the Guardian), “a disaster” (Time magazine) and “the world’s cautionary tale” (the New York Times).
Yet Sweden confounded its critics. The country’s first wave receded around the same time as Britain’s, and over the succeeding months it crept down the list of countries by official Covid death rate – as others caught-up-with and then surpassed Sweden’s death toll.
The argument then became: “But Sweden did worse than its neighbours!” Critics would point out that although Sweden did okay compared to the rest of Europe, it did worse than the other Nordic countries.
This was a weak argument at the time, as I’ve noted before. But now its premise is actually false: Sweden did not do worse than the other Nordics.
As you may recall, back in November of 2021 the ONS published estimates of age-adjusted excess mortality for most of the countries in Europe. These showed that up to June of 2021, Sweden had negative excess mortality – fewer people died than usual. On the other hand, its excess mortality was less negative than that of the other Nordic countries.
The ONS has now published updated estimates of age-adjusted excess mortality, which run all the way up to July of 2022. And they show that Sweden’s excess mortality is lower than Finland’s, Denmark’s and Iceland’s; only Norway did better.
Between January 2020 and July 2022 (blue dots), Sweden’s age-standardised mortality rate was 4% lower than the five-year average. By contrast, Iceland’s was 3.9% lower, Denmark’s was 2.8% lower and Finland’s was 1.7% lower. This means that Sweden did better than three out of four other Nordics.
In the summer of 2020, Sweden’s state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said, “Judge me in a year”. One year later, Sweden’s excess mortality was below the European average. We can now judge him again, more than two years later: Sweden’s excess mortality is the second lowest in Europe. On top of that, Sweden saw the second smallest increase in national debt of all European countries.
Tegnell got it right, and his critics got it wrong.
Sweden Ditches Barbaric ‘Gender-Affirming’ Care for Kids
BY MATT MARGOLIS | PJ MEDIA | DECEMBER 27, 2022
The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW) recently published new treatment guidelines which completely abandon recommendations that children with gender identity issues undergo so-called “gender-affirming care.”
Sweden’s new treatment guidelines for youth with “gender dysphoria,” which came out last week, say that the first line of treatment should be psychosocial support rather than giving kids dangerous drugs to stop puberty or mutilating their bodies.
“Psychosocial support that helps the young person live with the body’s pubertal development without medication needs to be the first option when choosing care measures,” the new guidelines read.
According to NBHW, “the risks of puberty suppressing treatment with GnRH-analogues and gender-affirming hormonal treatment currently outweigh the possible benefits, and that the treatments should be offered only in exceptional cases.”
“The NBHW still considers that gender dysphoria rather than gender identity should determine access to care and treatment,” the report said.
With this move, Sweden flat-out rejects the West’s current obsession with “gender identity” ideology — which is refreshing. Here at PJ Media, we’ve been pointing out for a long time that “gender dysphoria” is a psychological problem that requires psychological intervention. Unfortunately, we’ve seen far too many stories of the transgender cult rushing to mutilate children without any psychological intervention first.
The new guidelines are a significant departure from the guidelines Sweden adopted in 2015, which were based on radical recommendations from the activist World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).
Sweden changed its guidelines because there wasn’t enough reliable scientific evidence to support the WPATH guidelines. The NBHW also cited the growing number of incidents of detransitioning.
“Although the prevalence of detransition is still unknown, the knowledge that it occurs and that gender confirming treatment thus may lead to a deteriorating of health and quality of life (i.e. harm), is important for the overall judgment and recommendation,” the new guidelines explain.
This stands in stark contrast to the attitudes of the current administration in the United States. Dr. Richard “Rachel” Levine, Joe Biden’s assistant secretary for health, claims that “there is no argument” about “gender-affirming care” among pediatricians and doctors who specialize in adolescents. Biden also wants taxpayers to foot the bill for gender transitions of kids.
Another factor that played a role in Sweden’s decision to ditch WPATH’s guidelines was the sharp rise in the number of young people with gender dysphoria for no clear reason, especially among teenage girls who had never had gender distress before.
WPATH has been denounced by an international group of mental health professionals, public health scientists, and allied organizations and individuals for its “adherence to ideological views unsupported by evidence, its exclusion of ethical concerns, and its mischaracterization of basic science.”
Related: Controversial Transgender Clinic Shuts Down in U.K., Deemed ‘Not Safe’ for Children
Sweden Confirms ‘Baltic Titanic’ Was Used for Secret Military Transports
Samizdat – 23.12.2022
The Estonia’s sinking in 1994 killed 852 people and is seen as the second-worst peacetime maritime disaster, ranking only behind the Titanic. With decades having gone by, questions about the tragedy abound, despite survivors’ numerous calls for justice.
In a sensational confession, the Swedish Armed Forces have admitted that the Estonia passenger ferry, whose demise in 1994 is seen as one of the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century, was used for secret military transports.
Ever since the Estonia sank on September 28, 1994, there have been rumors that the ferry had military cargo on board on the night of the accident. The accident commission appointed shortly afterwards dismissed the rumors as unsubstantiated fantasies. However, in 2004 Swedish media revealed that at least on two occasions, two weeks and one week before the accident, cars loaded with military gear were transported to Sweden.
In a new document, “a handful” of military transports from the Baltic countries with the Swedish Armed Forces as recipients were finally confirmed, yet without exact dates. However, the document features “electronic equipment without any connection to weapons systems” transported in civilian vehicles.
The Armed Forces’ written response also cited “Project Baltic Support”, a Swedish military aid program run in 1993-2003. Among others, the project included “equipment transferred to the Baltics” as well as “comprehensive training programs.”
The somewhat belated and mostly involuntary admission comes in response to an ongoing re-investigation of the Estonia shipwreck following a groundbreaking documentary that revealed a previously unknown hole in the ship’s hull and sowed skepticism in the official version. As part of their work, the investigators queried the Armed Forces about the military transports.
“At the beginning of the 90s, the Baltic states were newly independent and the Soviet Union had fallen, so there was certainly a great interest, among others, within the Swedish Armed Forces in getting military equipment from there,” Jonas Backstrand, chairman of the Estonia investigation at the State Accident Commission told Swedish media, citing interviews with both current and former employees of the Armed Forces.
Previous investigations hinted that the Armed Forces may have organized the transports in collaboration with officials from Ericsson Group. The Swedish Customs had promised the military not to check the cars’ loads, something it itself later confirmed.
Questions Remain
The passenger ferry Estonia sank on the night of September 28, 1994, about halfway between Tallinn and Stockholm. 852 people died in the disaster, which is now sometimes referred to as the “Baltic Titanic”. 28 years later, it remains largely a mystery despite survivors’ numerous calls for justice.
While a subsequent investigation formally placed the blame on a faulty bow visor that allowed thousands of tons of water to gush in, an abundance of alternative theories have flourished over the decades, including the Estonia being sunk by submarine. These theories, while officially dismissed as conspiracies, were nevertheless fueled by the Swedish government’s hasty decision to drop thousands of tons of pebbles on the site and thereby turn the wreck into a sea grave. Furthermore, the so-called Estonia Act was quickly railroaded through, establishing the sanctity of the site and prohibiting citizens from the signatory counties from even approaching the wreck.
Recently, 17 Estonia survivors penned an opinion piece in Swedish media, urging to add more resources and review the accident in its entirety. They stress that it took 27 years before they were allowed to testify and that the final report from 1997 didn’t fully agree with their experiences.
“If during the 90s it was sensitive to investigate because of security policy issues and Sweden’s need to assert its non-alignment, perhaps it can be seen differently now?”, the survivors wrote, alluding to Sweden’s vaunted vestiges of neutrality that went down in flames earlier this year as the Nordic country filed an application to join NATO.
Defense minister announces major expansion of Russian army
RT | December 21, 2022
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has announced the need to make a number of structural changes to the country’s armed forces in light of NATO’s attempts to bolster its presence on Russia’s border and expand its membership to Finland and Sweden.
During a Russian Defense Ministry meeting on Wednesday, Shoigu proposed a number of measures to strengthen the security of the Russian Federation, including creating a special grouping of troops on the country’s northwestern border and expanding Russia’s armed forces to amount to 1.5 million servicemen in total, with some 695,000 of them being contract soldiers.
Shoigu’s comments come as Helsinki and Stockholm have submitted bids to join NATO, citing a perceived threat from Russia in light of its ongoing military operation in Ukraine. Their accession to the US-led bloc is currently stalled by Türkiye and Hungary, but all other members have already welcomed their membership.
The minister also offered to “gradually” change the minimum draft age in Russia from 18 to 21 and raise the maximum age to 30, while also offering all draftees the opportunity to sign a contract with the army from the first day of service.
Shoigu went on to suggest creating a number of new military groupings, including five new artillery divisions, eight bomber aviation regiments, and one fighter regiment, as well as six army aviation brigades.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who also attended the meeting, approved the proposals for improving the country’s armed forces and instructed Shoigu to report back once these measures are deliberated with the ministerial board. Putin promised to address these proposals in detail later.
During his address to senior defense officials, Putin also emphasized the need to continue to modernize Russia’s nuclear arsenal, describing it as the key to guaranteeing the country’s sovereignty.
Travesty of justice: 1,100 days of torture, solitary confinement for Iranian in Sweden
Press TV – November 9, 2022
Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian judiciary official who has been illegally incarcerated in Sweden, on Wednesday completed three years in solitary confinement despite the court’s order that the cruel restrictions on him be lifted.
Nouri’s son, Majid Nouri, said on Wednesday that his father has been languishing in solitary confinement since his arrest on flimsy charges in November 2019.
Nouri was arrested immediately upon his arrival at the Stockholm Airport three years ago. Swedish authorities alleged that he was involved in the execution and torture of the members of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) in 1988.
He has repeatedly and vehemently rejected the allegations.
In July, a Swedish court sentenced Nouri to life imprisonment. The court, which was described by Iranian officials as illegal, convicted Nouri of so-called war crimes and crimes against humanity, based on allegations leveled by the MKO terrorist cult.
Majid Nouri said he received an email in early July from the judge who acknowledged that restrictions over his father’s imprisonment had come to an end.
“However, prison authorities have unfortunately maintained the restrictions by ignoring the judge’s ruling and my father is still in solitary confinement and he cannot visit or contact family members,” he said.
He also noted that his father has suffered torture while in custody, which has caused damage to his eyesight and hearing ability as Swedish authorities bar him from visiting a doctor. “My father is under physical and spiritual torture in the prison, and we are very worried about his health condition.”
Nouri had already given details of his physical torture at the hands of his jailers in a short phone contact with his family before the illegal sentence was issued. He had then complained about the failure of human rights organizations in visiting him and dealing with the rights violations.
Meanwhile, Heibatollah Nazhandi-Manesh, who is a legal advisor to Nouri’s family, said on Wednesday that since no calls or visits are allowed between Nouri and his family, Swedish lawyers of the case are informing the family about his health condition.
Even consular access to him has become limited, he said, adding that no human rights organization has responded to the family’s call to address the case.
The Swedish government, he said, is required to respect the rights of detainees based on the European Convention on Human Rights as well as EU regulations and directives.
“Keeping an individual in solitary confinement for three years is tantamount to torture,” he said.
Iranian Judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi vowed that the judicial branch will follow up on Nouri’s rights.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, he said Nouri “has been in solitary confinement for a thousand and one hundred days, and human rights claimants are silent.”
Nouri had only a “five-minute” conversation with his family in the past two months, he said.
Sweden explains rejection of joint Nord Stream probe
Samizdat | October 14, 2022
Stockholm has rejected a plan to set up an official joint investigation team together with Germany and Denmark to look into the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in late September, Reuters reported, citing a Swedish investigator. Sweden reportedly argued that its own findings are too sensitive to share even with other EU nations.
The EU’s agency for criminal justice cooperation, Eurojust, recently came up with a proposal to establish a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to launch a probe into the Nord Stream explosions, Reuters said, adding that Sweden blocked the initiative. On Friday, Mats Ljungqvist, a Swedish prosecutor involved in the nation’s probe into the incident, told the news agency that this development would impose unwanted obligations on his nation.
“This is because there is information in our investigation that is subject to confidentiality directly linked to national security,” Ljungqvist said, adding that his nation is already cooperating with Germany and Denmark on the matter anyway.
According to the prosecutor, establishing a JIT would involve signing a legally binding information-sharing agreement. Eurojust says on its website that a JIT mechanism indeed includes a legal agreement between the involved parties for the purposes of conducting criminal investigations.
Earlier, citing “security circles,” Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine said that Sweden considered the sensitivity level of its own probe’s findings to be “too high to share them with other countries.” News portal Tagesschau, owned by the German ARD broadcaster, also reported on Friday that Germany, Sweden, and Denmark initially wanted to investigate the incident together but “that’s not the case now.”
According to Tagesschau, Denmark also eventually opposed the idea of a joint probe. Now, all three nations will conduct their own separate investigations, it added. Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson denied the reports, however, adding that “we are working together with Germany and Denmark on this issue.”
Earlier, all three nations refused to grant Russia access to the probe, prompting Moscow to summon their ambassadors. Russia also said it would not recognize the results of any probe unless its specialists were allowed to participate. Andersson said on Monday that Stockholm would not share its investigation results with Moscow.
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were damaged and rendered inoperable following a series of powerful underwater explosions off the Danish island of Bornholm. No nation conducting a probe into the incident has officially named any suspects that could have been involved in the alleged attacks on the pipelines.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously hinted at a potential “beneficiary.”
“One can now force the liquefied natural gas from the US on to European countries on a much larger scale,” he said earlier this week. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the incidents a “tremendous opportunity” for Europe “to once and for all remove dependence on Russian energy.”
Moscow demands answers on Nord Stream blasts
Samizdat | October 13, 2022
Russia will not recognize the results of the ongoing investigation into the explosions at the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in late September unless its experts are allowed to take part in the probe, Moscow has said. Russia’s foreign ministry revealed on Thursday it had summoned the representatives of Germany, Denmark and Sweden to convey its “bewilderment” over a lack of official reaction to a request for cooperation sent earlier this month by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
In its press statement, the ministry noted that while Russian authorities and the country’s energy giant, Gazprom, have still not been granted access to the investigation, reports have been appearing which suggest that Berlin, Copenhagen and Stockholm have been far more accommodating to similar requests made by other nations, including the US.
Russian diplomats emphasized that if its calls for cooperation are ignored, Moscow will assume that the three European countries “have something to hide or [that] they are covering up the perpetrators of these terrorist attacks.”
“Russia will, of course, not recognize any ‘pseudo-results’ of such an investigation, unless Russian experts take part in it,” the statement read.
The warning comes after Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson announced on Monday that Stockholm would not share with Moscow the results of its investigation into the explosions that severely damaged the two conduits created to pump gas from Russia to Europe.
“In Sweden, our preliminary investigations are confidential, and that, of course, also applies in this case,” she explained.
The premier added, however, that Russia may conduct its own probe at the site if it so wishes.
Meanwhile, Swedish authorities have said they’d found evidence that points to sabotage.
Also on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted that despite the denial of access to the probe, “we all know well who the ultimate beneficiary of this crime is.” Earlier, he had publicly laid the blame for the attack at the doorstep of the “Anglo-Saxons,” a Russian colloquialism for the US-UK bond.
Commenting on the blasts, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had described them as a “tremendous opportunity” for Europe “to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy.”
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were rendered inoperable on September 26 following a series of powerful underwater explosions off the Danish island of Bornholm.
EU Ban on RT, Sputnik Breaches Swedish, Danish Constitutions – Danish Journalists
Samizdat – 07.10.2022
The EU ban on Russian news outlets is in breach of Swedish and Danish constitutions, which explicitly prohibit all forms of censorship, Danish journalists and media educators said Friday.
The EU Council of Ministers banned the dissemination of RT and Sputnik content in March and added three other Russian outlets to the blacklist in June. The European Court of Justice defended the controversial measure, saying the rights of journalists were protected as long as they acted “in good faith.”
This is despite that legal safeguards in the Swedish Constitution’s freedom of the press act protect “the right of everyone to publish without prior interference by a public authority,” whereas the Danish constitution states that “Censorship and other preventive measures shall never again be introduced.”
Media experts argued in an article in the EUobserver that the EU intervention effectively overrode the basic laws of Sweden and Denmark, raising doubts about the EU leadership’s commitment to democratic values and the rule of law.
The journalists said the EU executive set aside constitutional defenses of freedom of expression with the silent approval of media and the public. The only exception was Norway, which is not a member state but is closely associated with the union.
They said the EU’s court in Luxembourg had granted itself the right to decide what journalism was acceptable while denying European citizens the ability to deal themselves with “unfiltered statements from questionable sources.”
“There is no confidence in our ability to deal with contradictory views of events. The EU institutions decide what we can cope with. Freedom of expression is not absolute, and never was,” they said.