The Social Democrats’ contacts with circles connected to the Muslim Brotherhood may have much older roots than previously known. This is claimed by Ledarsidorna in a new investigation focusing on the party’s international work and its contacts with the Palestinian movement.
According to the investigation, some of these contacts were formalized as early as 1969, several decades before the Social Democrats’ cooperation with the Swedish Muslim Council became public knowledge. Ledarsidorna also points out that the relationship did not necessarily occur through direct cooperation with the Muslim Brotherhood but rather through contacts with the Palestinian movement Fatah and organizations surrounding it.
A central figure in this story is Hani al-Hassan, who led Palestinian cadre training from 1969. According to sources cited by Ledarsidorna, al-Hassan had joined the Muslim Brotherhood as early as the 1950s. He would later assume a leading role within Fatah and was also associated with Black September, the organization responsible for the terror attack against the Israeli Olympic team in Munich in 1972, among others.
Ledarsidorna refers to an activity report from Fatah’s ideological academy in Jericho, published in May 2026. The report describes Olof Palme International Center as the organization’s main partner and supporter since 1992.
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The claims are further supported by the Palme Center’s own activity reports, according to the investigation. In reports from 2004, 2005, and 2007, educational and organizational support for Fatah is described. Among other things, it is stated that hundreds of Fatah members underwent training in the West Bank and in Tunisia.
In 2007, the support was described as the Social Democrats’ largest party aid project. At the party congress in 2009, the party board proposed that the activity should continue.
According to Ledarsidorna, the activities were carried out through, among other entities, the Labor Movement International Center (AIC), which later became Olof Palme International Center, as well as ABF. The funding was linked to the Swedish system for party-oriented democracy support.
Schori and Andersson Named
Another central part of the investigation focuses on the then party secretary of the Social Democrats, Sten Andersson, and the international secretary, Pierre Schori.
Ledarsidorna refers to the former ABF chairman, Bosse Bergnéhr, who according to the newspaper claimed that he received special assignments from Andersson and Schori to build relations with, among others, the PLO.
Bergnéhr also states that he traveled to Gaza for the first time in 1982, the same year he became president of ABF. At this time, the PLO was still classified as a terrorist organization by, among others, the USA. The U.S. terrorist designation was not lifted until 1993.
Ledarsidorna points out that Schori and Bergnéhr also appear in an article on Dagens Nyheter’s culture page from May 1994. Schori is described in connection with diplomatic negotiations in Jericho, while Bergnéhr was present as an ABF representative.
This is, according to the investigation, a sign that there were parallel Swedish channels into the Palestinian movement – a diplomatic and a party-political one.
Trainings Named After Figures Linked to Black September
Fatah’s 2026 report lists 21 courses conducted at the organization’s ideological academy. One training session was held in 2018 and was named after Hani al-Hassan. According to the report, 20 people participated in the eight-month training, which was supported by Olof Palme International Center.
A later training, from 2025, is said to be named after Salah Khalaf, also known as Abu Iyad. He was one of Fatah’s leading figures and is also associated with Black September.
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Another training bore the name Hayel Abd al-Hamid, who led Fatah’s security apparatus from 1973 until his death in 1991.
Ledarsidorna simultaneously notes that the report does not specify any financier for the trainings named after Khalaf and Abd al-Hamid. Only the 2018 training is explicitly stated as having received support from the Palme Center.
An Older History Than the Cooperation with the Swedish Muslim Council
The main thesis of the investigation is that the Social Democrats’ relations with Islamist circles did not begin with the cooperation agreement that the party later had with the Swedish Muslim Council. That agreement was signed in 1999 and has previously been a focal point in the discussion of the Social Democrats’ relations with Swedish organizations connected to the Muslim Brotherhood’s European network.
Ledarsidorna instead claims that the relationship can be traced back another 30 years, to 1969 and the Palestinian cadre training then led by Hani al-Hassan.
At the same time, there is an important distinction between having contact with Fatah and having direct cooperation with the Muslim Brotherhood. The investigation is, in several respects, based on personal ties and historical relationships.
Contradictory Images
Ledarsidorna also presents information that complicates the picture. Thomas Hammarberg, who served as Secretary General of the Palme Center from 2002 to 2005, described the trainings as focused on practical association work, internal democracy, and auditing.
According to Hammarberg, the older generation within Fatah also perceived the trainings as a threat to their own power position. This means that there are several possible interpretations of the activities.
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Ledarsidorna’s investigation argues that contacts with the Brotherhood may have existed indirectly, through Fatah and individuals with a background in the Brotherhood. But the paper also acknowledges that the material gives a more complex picture of Sweden’s role and that it cannot be concluded that Sweden acted as an instrument of a foreign power.
The investigation thus primarily raises questions about how far back the Social Democrats’ international contacts with Palestinian and Islamist-influenced circles reach and how the relationships were funded with Swedish public funds.
Muslim Representation in Exchange for Political Influence
There is also more concrete documentation of Social Democratic cooperation with Muslim organizations from the late 1990s. In January 2014, Expressen published a written agreement from 1999 between the then Social Democratic Brotherhood Movement, now Faith and Solidarity, and the Swedish Muslim Council (SMR).
The agreement included concrete goals to increase Muslim representation within the Social Democrats. Among other things, it specified that by the 2002 election, there should be Muslims on 15 municipal council lists, five county council lists, and parliamentary lists in at least five counties. The parties also wrote that they would “actively promote Muslims for positions on boards and committees.”
The cooperation was also about more than just representation. In the agreement, the Brotherhood Movement committed to intensifying work on political issues that SMR had specifically pointed out. These included legislation or agreements on Muslim holidays, state-supported imam training, and workplace agreements to facilitate Friday prayers.
In connection with the publication, Expressen interviewed Islamologist Sameh Egyptson, who claimed that several leading figures within the Swedish Muslim Council were Islamists and that the organization had links to the Muslim Brotherhood.
At the time, the chairman of Faith and Solidarity, Peter Weiderud, defended the cooperation and said it was possible to work with people who held different opinions than the Social Democrats.
The documented agreement was between the Brotherhood Movement and the Swedish Muslim Council, not between the Social Democrats and the Muslim Brotherhood as organizations. However, several representatives for SMR have later been described as Islamists or as individuals with connections to the Brotherhood.