Jamal El-Haj is forced to pause committee duties

Riksdag member Jamal El-Haj will take a break from his duties as deputy in the foreign affairs committee.

This is stated by Social Democrats’ group leader Lena Hallengren for TT.

He has received criticism for attending the European Palestinian Conference in Malmö last weekend, despite the party leadership refusing, and this has led to demands from members of the Riksdag that Jamal El-Haj should leave his seat on the Riksdag’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

Have consequences

– A dissuasion against participation was issued and he chose to participate. For me as group leader, it is important that it has consequences, says Lena Hallengren to TT after having a conversation with the member.

– Jamal will pause his deputy assignment in the foreign affairs committee at least for the rest of this year, then we’ll see, says Hallengren.

She adds that the break also applies to other deputy duties, such as in the Riksdag’s delegation to the OSCE.

Jamal El-Haj announced the other day that he believes he lived up to the party’s advice. He participated, he says, as a Swedish-Palestinian and had put the social democratic rose on the shelf at home over the weekend.

But it is not possible to share one’s roles in that way, according to Lena Hallengren.

– I have a great deal of understanding that he, as a Palestinian, feels very strongly about being in a context like this and meeting compatriots. But a social democratic member of parliament is always a social democratic member of parliament, that applies to me, that applies to Jamal and the 105 others, says Hallengren.

There were doubts

– There were doubts about the conference, and that’s where we make different assessments, says Hallengren.

Just before the conference, the Social Democrats, the Left Party and the Green Party discouraged representatives who had planned to attend from participating. They pulled out when information came that the chairman of the event, Amin Abu Rashid, had been singled out as the leader of Hamas, labeled a terrorist organization by the EU. Jamal El-Haj is in pictures with the man at the conference.

TT is looking for the member.