The Sweden Democrats’ election posters at the Sports Centre in Norrtälje have been torn down by unknown individuals. The incident has been reported to the police, and the party describes it as an attack on the ability to conduct a democratic election campaign.
It was on Wednesday that the Sweden Democrats discovered that their posters at the Sports Centre had been destroyed.
The party claims that this is sabotage of their election material and wrote on Facebook after the incident that political disagreements should be handled through debate and arguments, not by destroying others’ materials.
“It is sad to see that our election posters in Norrtälje have been subjected to sabotage. You don’t have to agree with us politically, but in a democracy, you respond to opinions with arguments, not by tearing down or destroying campaign materials.”
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Jacob Heitmann is the deputy group leader for the Sweden Democrats in Norrtälje, and he sees the whole situation as an attack on democracy.
– It is undemocratic behavior and does not bode well for the election when sabotage has already begun, he told Norrtelje Tidning.
After the incident, Heitmann also criticized the fact that representatives of other parties in Norrtälje have not commented on or distanced themselves from the sabotage.
The sabotage against the election posters has been reported to the police and the Sweden Democrats state that they will replace the damaged materials.
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– The posters will go up again. We will never reconcile with this or say it gets too expensive. If anything, this only motivates us even more. Okay then, we’ll just put up two new ones, says the group leader to Norrtelje Tidning.
This is not the first time that the Sweden Democrats’ election materials have been vandalized during the campaign. Earlier this week, there were reports of an incident in Henriksdal in southern Stockholm, where two people allegedly tore down the party’s posters.
In Gävle, a Left Party municipal council politician is being prosecuted after removing Sweden Democrats’ election materials from locked mailboxes in April. The event was caught on surveillance video.
