pic: thedailybeast.com
Backa Folkets Hus outside of Göteborg has raised a lot of hackles by allowing an organization to hire the venue to hear a talk about the danger of vaccinations.
“The People’s House and Parks” (Folkets Hus & Parker) is a country-wide organization that administers 520 “Folkets Hus” venues. These venues can be hired by organizations and associations that are members of Folkets Hus & Parker for meetings, talks, educational courses, exhibitions and more. One of these member associations has rented the space to hear an anti-vaxxer speak.
According to Peter Andersson, administrator of the Backa Folkets Hus space, the only requirement for people wanting to rent the space is that they don’t go over time and that they clean it properly afterwards. Regarding this particular speaker, Andersson responded to DN “We live in a democracy, don’t we? Just because you learn certain things in school doesn’t mean that they’re correct.”
The woman who is to speak, an editor for a website that is critical to vaccinations (and who isn’t named in the article), describes the meeting as one in which she will be bringing up the “grim reality” of inoculations. The media, she claims, are influenced by the propaganda spouted by pharmaceutical companies, DN reports. The media don’t report on the side effects of shots: By only describing vaccinations as humanity’s salvation they’re just “playing into the hands of the pharmaceutical industry” (springer industrins ärenden).
Although there are no specific regulations, local Folkets Hus associations are encouraged to not have racist or other exclusionary speakers or organizations as members. The chair for the national association, Calle Nathanson, says that although the event sounds like fake news propagation, they are not about to forbid it: “No, we don’t do things like that. It would be like not allowing freedom of speech.”
The talk is scheduled for late March.