 |
| Gina Dirawi Photo Credit: SVT |
20-year old blogger, Gina Dirawi has recently been elected host of this year’s national Swedish song contest (Schlager festivalen), a contest that nominates Sweden’s contribution to the Euro Vision song contest. Gina Dirawi is not only a blogger and comedian but also an outspoken anti-Semite.
On her blog, Gina Dirawi, who is of Palestinian decent, writes about her private life but also about the US, Israel, terrorism and Jews. Many of her posts contain deeply disturbing anti-Semitic content such as a post called “go terrorism?”; here Dirawi writes:
How can a can a country like Israel, that violate all human rights, do the exact same thing as Hitler did, but with other means, not be called a terrorist country?
The post has been erased from the blog following criticism of the content, but a screen capture can be seen here (in Swedish).
In the post Dirawi further elaborates on her conspiracy for the September 11 terror attacks, which she believes was a plot constructed by the U.S. government. Ironically, despite her anti-American conspiracy theories, Swedish television has previously chose Dirawi to participate in a TV show commemorating the terror attacks against the World Trade Center.
Except for in the post "go terrorism?", Dirawi has on numerous occasions compared Israeli politics to Hitler and the Holocaust. One of the EU criterias on what can be reffered to as anti-Semtisim.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day 2010 she wrote: “Today it's the 27th of January and apparently it is the remembrance day for all those who were murdered during the Holocaust” (…) I want all of us not only to have a silent moment for all those Jews who were killed but for all people who have been killed and murdered. For all Palestinians who have been murdered by Zionists in Israel”...
More posts contain the same anti-Semitic message:
“ I don't understand how people who have experienced the Holocaust can do the exact same thing against other people, and that the world is just watching. This is the new Holocaust….” (Screen capture can be found here):
And this:
“The Israeli government is doing the same thing as Hitler did against their people but with other means, they oppress and they are murdering people who are not like them!”
Following criticism of the Swedish National TV’s decision to choose Dirawi as the host for the Swedish song contest, the CEO of SvT has answered one Swedish blogger, who chose to publish their reply on his blog (in Swedish). It reads:
SvT cannot accept statements of this kind from people representing SvT. Gina wrote the text that is referred to, when she was 18 and before she started working for SvT. We did not know about them and she has taken them off [the blog]. Gina Dirawi has on many other places on her blog emphasized her respect for people with different faith, also for Judaism. But she is against violence. We are having a dialogue with Gina about how she better can describe this conviction.
It is clear that the dialogue between the CEO of SvT and Dirawi is not working very well as there at present are posts with the same theme on Dirawi’s blog.
The Swedish national song contest is held yearly and allows Swedish songwriters to compete for a prestigious place in the European song contest (also known as the EuroVision). The Swedish national competition is one of the most-watched TV programs in Sweden and being a host of this event is a great honor.
In Sweden, the show is broadcast by national Swedish TV (SvT), which is subsidized by Swedish taxpayers. The fact that Gina Dirawi has erased a portion of her blog content with clear anti-Semitic topics (not to mention the talkbacks) does not erase the fact that she is highly unfit to be a spokesperson for Swedish National TV.
No comments:
Post a Comment