Blogger Pays Fine for Anti-Semitic Statement

A Swedish elite land hockey player was recently charged with a fine for blogging anti-Semitic statements in his sports blog.

The blogger, who is neither political nor religiously involved, was discussing British football in his blog last year when he referred to one team as  ”greedy Jews”. In the same blog post he also spoke inappropriately about Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) in Nazi Germany.

He writes: I hope Liverpool will proceed  ”harder than the Germans did during the Kristallnacht” against Tottenham.

The blogger, Alexander Mayborn, claims to have “good values” and stated to tabloid Aftonbladet that his aim was not to harm anyone. He also stated that:

-Racism and Nazism is something that I distance myself from.

The Jewish community, however, did not appreciate his choice of words and pressed charges against Mayborn. The blog post clearly shows the insensitivity and cluelessness of many Swedes who think they have “good values” when they compare a football team to the Holocaust in which millions of people were slaughtered.

The blog post also shows how an elite sports player can easily post clearly anti-Semitic statements on the Internet for everyone to see. This is neither the first time it has happened. Also Swedish politicians such as Social Democrat and member of Parliament, Veronica Palm, has posted anti-Semitic expressions on her blog and when told off, stated that ”they might be interpreted as anti-Semtic”.

Anti-Semitism has spread during the recent years in Sweden and the jargon seems to be common on the Internet as well. Some people might just be plain stupid but there are those who are using the cover of stupidity to spread real messages. It’s important to repudiate anti-Semitic slurs and demand retractions. This frightening progression of the acceptability of hate speech must be stopped.