Published: Just now
According to a Turkish news agency, Foreign Minister Tobias Billström has said that Sweden should ban the “waving” of PKK flags.
That is not true, according to Billström.
– Tobias did not say that at the press conference, says his press secretary Anna Erhardt.
The state-run Turkish news agency Anadolu Agency reported yesterday about Sweden’s new constitutional amendment, something like Today’s ETC was the first in Sweden to report on.
They cite the Ministry of Justice as saying that the amendment to the law makes it possible to introduce a broader criminalization of participation in a terrorist organization, or a ban on the terrorist organization itself.
At the end of the article, they refer to a statement Tobias Billström made to the news agency on December 23.
It is claimed that Billström said that a “new crime” will become relevant in the Swedish criminal code on June 1, 2023.
It is about the promotion of terrorist organizations on Swedish soil being prohibited – even waving their flags, writes the news agency and claims to be quoting Billström.
New law does not ban flags
According to the foreign minister’s press secretary Anna Erhardt, it is true that the Riksdag will vote on a new law that criminalizes participation in terrorist organizations on March 7.
“The new law does not prohibit the waving of flags, but when the law is to be applied, different evidence will be required to prove participation in a terrorist organization and there a flag may play a role,” she writes and continues:
“More precisely what the new law entails, the Ministry of Justice will come back to at a later date”.
But the fact that Billström should have claimed that waving PKK flags should be banned is not true, she says.
– At that press conference, he read out a formal statement. There was nothing about flag-waving.
– It is possible that it has been up for discussion. But Tobias did not say that at the press conference.