Last chance to belittle the Holocaust

Published 28 June 2024 at 16.45

Law & Right. From Monday, the law on incitement against ethnic groups will be expanded to make it a criminal offense to deny, “belittle” or “excuse” the Holocaust and other “genocide, crimes against humanity” or “crimes of aggression”. p>

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For incitement against a ethnic group, “anyone who, in a statement or in another message that is disseminated, denies, excuses or clearly belittles a crime that constitutes or amounts to genocide, crimes against humanity , crime of aggression according to a ruling that has been handed down by a Swedish court or by a recognized international court for crimes against international law and that has been given legal force.”

This applies “if the act is intended to incite violence against, threaten or express disrespect for such a group or individual as referred to in the first paragraph”. the Riksdag adjourned with acclamation on May 22.

The new law comes into force on July 1 – Monday. From then on, you can get up to two years in prison if you deny, downplay or excuse certain events.

All parties in the Riksdag were in favor of the amendment, although the Sweden Democrats believed that the law should be evaluated after five years.

The Riksdag also agreed to amend the freedom of the press regulation so that media are also covered by the new opinion ban. That proposal is dormant and will come into effect on January 1, 2027. Since parts of the proposals concern an amendment to the Freedom of the Press Ordinance, a constitution, it is required that the Riksdag vote equally twice on the proposal and there must be an election between the votes.

< p>The government's proposal received harsh criticism from several referral bodies. Uppsala University considered that at most it could be justified to criminalize gross denials of “facts” and that the state should refrain from legislating on what citizens should think or how historical events should be interpreted. The prosecutor's office stated that it can be difficult to delimit the punishable area regarding which crimes cannot be denied. According to the Swedish Association of Journalists, Sweden's Association of Judges and the Publicist Club and others, the change in the law means that there is a risk that the punishable area will be expanded.