Press Release
A Sword as a Weapon of Deadly Terror - and the Terror Term as a Sword against Muslims

Thursday 23rd of October 2015 was a dark day in Swedish history. A young masked man walked in to a school in the city of Trollhätten, where he was armed with a sword, killed two people and injured another two. Eyewitnesses tell how the perpetrator targeted students and teachers with foreign characteristics, while he chatted and took pictures with ethnic Swedes.

Swedish police have, after searching his home, found right-wing extremist material and a personal letter, and thereby concluded that it was "probably a hate-crime" with racist motive.

Both police and media have categorically avoided to use the term 'terror' and referred to the uncertainty of the motive and that one therefore has to be cautious of using such a strong term. This caution is obviously only applicable when it concerns non-Muslims. In Danish media, the Breivik-case immediately was a "clear al-Qaeda mission", but was quickly changed to the act of a mentally disturbed loner. We saw the opposite last year in Copenhagen where they, both from the political side and the media, tossed around the term 'terror' before there was any information of either the perpetrator or motive. Where are all the journalists now with their questions about where, how and who got this person "radicalized"? Why does the insistence of the politicians and media on using the terms "terror" and "radicalization" vanish when the perpetrator is a white Scandinavian non-Muslim?

First of all the designation of this attack as terror, from an official side, would wash out the politicized linkage between Islam and terror, and that would mean one has to recognize, that they themselves, once again, have created a right-radical monster. As all over Europe, this is apparently a result of the distinctive right-wing turn, which dominates and therefore in any places is manifested violently. This is also seen on the political scene in Sweden, where the right-wing party "Sweden Democrats" is gaining ground and the liberal "Moderates" have recently proposed tightening on the immigration area. On that day alone after the attack, more than 30 Swedish schools received threats about attacks, which created headlines like, "Sweden in Fear".

Secondly, the battle for the use of the "terror-card" is important, because it has become a political tool, which is used to frighten the western population to accept harass Muslims through excessive tightening of laws, surveillance, secret trials, administrative deportations and the likes. All things, which normal people would not accept under other conditions, than falsely and politically created fear.

Junes Kock
Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir in Scandinavia