The Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Laila Freivalds, announced resignation from office on Tuesday. The background for her decision is a political scandal regarding shutting down a web site belonging to a right-wing political party.
The Swedish right-wing party Sverigedemokraterna (Swedish Democrats) published the notorious Danish cartoons of Prophet Muhammed (saws) on their web site in February. Hereby the Swedish MFA and the security police SÄPO contacted the service provider Levonline, in order to force a shut down of the site. The pressure from officials made Levonline follow these official instructions.
When this incident became public, it caused a political turmoil in Sweden, as the government has no right to interfere in mass media. Freedom of speech is a fundamental constitutional right in Sweden. Only a court has the authority to decide about restrictions, and only based upon a few obvious criterions such as racism, pedophilia and similar phenomens.
Laila Freivalds first denied that she knew about the actions against the web site. When it later came out that she actually knew about these actions in advance, she was forced to resign.
One of the web servers of Kavkazcenter is placed in Sweden. The Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs has made several attempts to get the server shut down, but has always been turned down with the explanation, that the government can’t interfere in a matter belonging to jurisdiction. If somebody seriously suspects that a web site contains illegal material, they are welcome to start legal actions in court. Naturally, the Russians have not even tried to start such actions, as the website Kavkazcenter obviously does not contain any illegal material. The Russian government do realize, that in a democracy the court is not dependent upon political or governmental guidance.
The legal actions against Kavkazcenter in Lithuania have also come to an end. The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania has recently decided, that there are no legal grounds for stopping the web site.
For Kavkazcenter
Mikael Storsjo
Helsinki
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