Russia: Concern about Swedish Jihadi site

Russia: Concern about Swedish Jihadi site


A prosecutor in Russia has asked Swedish authorities for information about an extreme islamist homepage in Sweden. The reason is that a threat towards a Russian civil servant has been published on the homepage. This is reported in the Swedish Public Radio broadcaster SR in the programme ´Medierna´.


The homepage is called Kavkaz Center (http://kavkazcenter.net/eng/) and has substance with encouragement to Jihad and extreme violence. It describes itself as an independent Chechen news source and it is formally based in Sweden. The homepage shows for example videos of successful bombings and assasination combined with suggestive religious music.


According to Medierna, there is also an explicit threat towards a Russian civil servant written by an anonymous person on the homepage. But why did Russian authorities contact Sweden? What is special with this homepage is that in the middle of all this, there is a text claiming that the site is protected by the Swedish constitution of press freedom.


The Russian wanted to know who this anonymous writer is which made the threat. They sent their question to Swedish authorities and it was handled by the Swedish Attorney-General, Göran Lambertz., who said no to the Russian demand for a name.



The reason was, according to Lambertz, that while the homepage has been granted authorization to publish which means that they have a strong protection in the Swedish constitution. According to this, it is forbidden to give out the names of the writers in the specific media source. The condition is that the news source must have a specific person that is entitled ´legally responsible publisher´.



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Source: Stockholm News (English)

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