The Sweden Democrats suspend official for offensive comments about Anne Frank | Anne Frank
An official in the Sweden Democrats has been suspended by the far-right party for making degrading comments about Anne Frank.
In an Instagram post that has now been deleted, Rebecka Fallenkvist, among other things, called the Jewish teenage diarist “immoral”, according to Swedish media.
Anne Frank, who wrote a diary while hiding in Amsterdam before her capture, died aged 15 in Nazi Germany’s Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in February 1945.
The post by Fallenkvist, a 26-year-old head of TV programs for the Sweden Democrats, drew strong reactions from Jewish groups and Israel’s ambassador, Ziv Nevo Kulman, who tweeted: “I strongly condemn this abhorrent insult, disrespectful to the memory of Anne Frank.” His post contained what appeared to be a screenshot of Fallenkvist’s Instagram post.
The Sweden Democrats’ media director, Oskar Cavalli-Bjorkman, told the Swedish news agency TT that the party would take Fallenkvist’s “insensitive and inappropriate” comments seriously and launch an internal investigation.
The Sweden Democrats were founded in the 1980s by people who had been active in far-right groups, including neo-Nazis. The party emerged as Sweden’s second largest party in the election on September 11 under the leadership of Jimmie Åkesson.
On Friday, three Swedish centrist parties agreed to form a coalition government with the support of the Sweden Democrats, who have moved against mainstream politics but stick to a hard line against immigration.