Newspaper and editor face harassment

Peaceful Assembly

On 25th November 2022, 600 young climate activists, including Greta Thunberg, marched through the centre of Stockholm, threatening to sue the Swedish state for not taking enough action to tackle climate change. The protest was peaceful and there were no tensions with the police.

Anton Foley, the spokesperson from the youth-led climate initiative Aurora which participated in the rally, stated: “Sweden has never treated the climate crisis like a crisis. Sweden is failing in its responsibility and breaking the law”. Though the country has committed to achieving net zero by 2045, the activists insist that this is not enough to mitigate the crisis.

Expression

On 15th December 2022, Mahmoud Agha, editor-in-chief of the Arab-language newspaper Alkompis, was threatened and harassed online by individuals with large followings on Tik Tok and YouTube. The newspaper was covering a story on misinformation about children being kidnapped by the Swedish authorities, which led to intimidating comments and hate speech against the newspaper and Agha who reported the harassment to the police, stating that: