Sweden Democrats or Swedish Democrats Swedish: Sverigedemokraterna , SD is a national-conservative , [12] right-wing populist [2] [13] political party in Sweden founded in The party has its roots in Swedish fascism [17] [18] [19] and was primarily a white nationalist movement through the earlys, [20] [21] when it first began distancing itself from its past.
From onwards the party's new leader, Mikael Jansson a former member of the Centre Party , strove to make the party more respectable and, after photographs surfaced of some members posing in Nazi uniforms at party meetings, the wearing of any kind of uniform was formally banned in In November , videos from August were released, in segments, over the course of three days by Swedish newspaper Expressen a year earlier, Expressen had released the same videos without making much noise.
This came to be known as the Iron pipe scandal , although the same videos had already been released on YouTube by Erik Almqvist in The videos show Almqvist arguing with comedian Soran Ismail: Almqvist is referring to Sweden as "my country, not your country", as an insult to Ismail.
They are also shown arguing with a drunken man. A woman can also be seen approaching Kent Ekeroth while filming; he calls her a whore and pushes her out of the way. A few minutes later they are seen picking up iron bars. He excused himself as having been under a lot of pressure and threats of violence at the time. Sweden Democratic Youth president Gustav Kasselstrand and vice president William Hahne criticized the decision to remove Almqvist and Ekeroth in an op-ed in Dagens Nyheter , arguing that the party should not give in to media pressure.
Only two weeks after Almqvist and Ekeroth were forced to step down, fellow MP Lars Isovaara reported being robbed of his backpack and pushed out of his wheelchair by "two unknown men of an immigrant background". When trying to get into the Riksdag, Isovaara was himself reported by the police for racial abuse against safety guards.
