March 2023 • SwedeInternational

Sex, blackmail, and legitimate interest

**No name. no picture. Nothing to see here.**
*source: https://wjlta.com/2012/07/20/anonymity-for-the-world-to-see-blurring-faces-in-youtube-videos/*

Headlines recently have been about the Moderate member of parliament who was blackmailed for 65,000 kronor. He apparently spent the night with two women, after which he paid one of them 5000 kronor. The other took pictures of the evening, presumably awkward ones, and demanded payment for not making them public. He paid, but then reported the whole thing to Säpo, the Swedish Security Services. She is now suspected of blackmail, and he of buying sexual favors.

Juicy! Who was it? How high up was he? Why is Säpo involved? Inquiring minds want to know, and we could find out. But most media outlets are careful with details. General Swedish media praxis for publishing the name and picture of criminals, suspected criminals and other people-in-the-news is to not publish them. The reasons are based on ethical grounds and defamation laws.

Negative effects

The member of parliament is purported to have said he didn’t buy any sexual services at all. He was only helping her out with rent and taxi fare. Almost no one is going to believe that. Trying such an old canard may even show him in a more unflattering light. This is precisely one of the reasons the daily newspapers and SVT are not going public with name and picture. As SVT explains, publishing his name and picture would likely affect his life negatively. It may also negatively affect the lives of the person’s family and friends. Ergo, no name and no picture.

There are exceptions to this rule. If there is a very large and irrefutable public interest, for instance, information can be made public. And/or if the crime is particularly heinous. When Sweden’s foreign minister Anna Lindh was shockingly and tragically murdered in 2003, it was only after her murderer admitted the deed that his name and picture was published. Even then, Aftonbladet felt it was necessary to publicly explain why they chose to identify him so clearly.

The truth is no defense

Obviously, just a handsy member of parliament doesn’t make that cut for most media. But another reason to not publish a name or picture is Sweden’s defamation laws. This has been taken up in a previous post, but in short, publicly making (or posting) a true but negative statement about someone can make you guilty of defamation in the eyes of the court. Truth is no defense, and the fine can be heavy.

In the future, decisions to publish could become more, or less, restrictive. The outcome of one current case may push us in either one of those directions.

Name + picture = shot?

Over the last years, the police have begun to use names and pictures to help find suspects. It must be deemed necessary to further the investigation, and is preceded by legal discussion.

This case begins with a shooting in Uppsala in January. A 25-year-old was arrested, in absentia since he’d already fled the country, for shooting at an apartment where family members of the gang leader “the Kurdish fox” were living. The TV program Efterlyst asked for and received permission to show the name and picture of the 25-year-old. Later that same evening, the 25-year-old’s father was shot and killed.

The father’s family filed a police complaint against the prosecutor who allowed the name and picture’s publication. They claim that by allowing their release, the prosecutor showed a criminal lack of regard for the safety of gang members’ families.

The case has not yet come up in court, and it perhaps never will. Still, it may have some aftershocks not just for the police but for media and the public. Politicians caught with their pants down will likely never end, but how much we’ll know and for how long we’ll hear about it is up to how we define legitimate and irrefutable public interest.

Whatever happened with…

A mixed-topic post with updates on four topics written about previously
image source: https://www.thespruceeats.com

Several previous topics in this blog have made the news again. Here are updates on: Archer; Botkyrka; the lay judge (nämndeman) system; and, of course, inflation and food prices.

Say I’m in a meeting

Public pressure pushed Minister of Finance Elizabeth Svantesson to call a meeting with the dominant grocery chains ICA, Coop, and Axfood (Willy’s and Hemköp). On the agenda? To discuss how to keep food prices down, and to make sure that no one is price gouging.

No actual meeting has been reported as of yet. It also remains unclear what pressure Svantesson can, and would be willing, to apply. Like during covid, the government is most likely to only “recommend” and then let everyone decide for themselves what they want to do. In France, an agreement between the finance minister and Carrefours ended with an agreement to freeze prices on daily goods (see this post). But Carrefours is leaving it up to their individual grocers to actually implement any freeze.

The government may be playing a waiting game. Many expect inflation to come down this year without any particular intervention in market prices. One prognosis has inflation at 4.8% at the end of the year, and back to normal (around 2%) by 2025. The reasons for this optimism are assumptions that the current lower prices for both energy and raw materials will continue, and that central banks will continue to raise interest rates.

Sadly, lower inflation does not mean lower prices for food, or anything else, really. It means only that prices will not rise so fast.

Back in Botkyrka

Meanwhile in Botkyrka, the Social Democratic party has acted. The rumor was that new members have been recruited solely in order to secure their votes on a particular measure. (For a quick review of the Botkyrka conflict, see this post.) To be an official Social Democrat, party secretary Baudin stated, you have to be 15 years old and share the party’s social democratic values – but membership isn’t automatic. Baudin upheld the decision to deny 98 party membership applications on the ground that their reasons for membership did not ring true.

Not just a phone call

The recruitment and application process to become a lay judge was under fire even more this week. As became clear in the Snippa sentence, contact between a political party and a lay judge is not always as distant as it should be (see this post). In the aftermath, there have been many calls to overhaul the recruitment system, even from a former minister of justice. The damage may be deep. Just the thought that they might receive a phone call from a sponsoring party can already have lay judges checking their opinions.

At least two reports (2002 and 2013) suggesting it would be good for at least some lay judges not be beholden to a party for their position have been ignored. Chances that these new calls will be heeded are low.

Archer deliveries

Ukraine’s call for more firepower will be soon answered, at least from Sweden’s end. Minister for Defense Pål Jonson announced this week that 8 Archers and even 10 Leopard tanks are ready to be sent over. For security reasons, details are sketchy. To learn more about the Archer system, as well as the other items Sweden is sending, see this post.

The price of eggs

Been To Norway recently? Swedes are taking trips across the border to take advantage of Norway’s lower food prices. The traffic used to be in the completely opposite direction. Calls for the government to do something about the price of food in Sweden are increasing. Unfortunately, nothing about this situation is easily solved.

Reasons behind the rollercoaster

Taking a trip to the grocery store has become an emotional rollercoaster – shock, consternation, maybe anger, and resignation. We have to eat, after all. Bloomberg and Eurostat show that food prices in Sweden this January were 20% higher than January last year. Covid, China’s extended lockdown, Russia’s war against Ukraine, inter alia, are all reasons for inflation and higher food prices. Another reason for the food price increase is the strong dollar and the weak krona.

The US economy is, to many, surprisingly strong (low unemployment and a 2.9% GDP increase in 2022). Interest rates are high and will likely rise more. Other countries put their money in US dollars because they can count on getting it back, and more. Sweden has only recently raised interest rates, GDP prospects are the worst in Europe according to the EU, and the earmarks of a housing bubble has global investors looking elsewhere. Simply put, Sweden isn’t attractive right now and the weak krona is a reflection of that.

Greedflation and other complaints

Consumers’ complaints about high food prices have not led to changes. The governor of the Swedish central bank, Erik Thedéen, responded by telling consumers to buy only the cheapest products so they don’t increase inflation. Sweden’s Minister of Finance Elizabeth Svantesson told consumers to look for the cheapest goods at the cheapest stores. Charges of “greedflation” – that food stores were raising prices beyond what was necessary – led the Swedish Competition Authority to investigate. Although they found no evidence of wrong doing at the end of last year, they are now going to look again to make sure. Finally, Left party leader Nooshi Dadgostar has called for setting a price cap on certain basic goods.

Svantesson immediately put the kibosh on Nooshi’s idea, saying that determining prices was not the government’s strong suit. Other countries’ governments, however, have approached the topic somewhat differently.

Other countries

In France, food prices have risen about 14.5% over the last year. The food giant Carrefours recently announced a “very good agreement” with Minister of Economy Bruno La Maire. The understanding is that Carrefours will freeze the current price on 100 basic foods and products like detergent, diapers, yoghurt, eggs, bread and cereal.

Government-imposed price caps on twenty food staples in Hungary have been in place since last fall. Shortages of these items (milk consumption is apparently up 81%) has since forced the Minister of Agriculture to exhort Hungarians to buy only what they need and not to hoard the price-fixed items when they find them.

30% is how much the price of olive oil has risen in Spain. The government is facing internal pressure to lower some food staples’ prices by 14%. That, and/or raise taxes on supermarket chains to finance other inflation measures. The Spanish government has raised the minimum wage 8% this year alone.

The goal

The Swedish government is so far avoiding making any changes that they think might increase inflation. Together with supporting Ukraine and joining Nato, bringing down inflation is the country’s overriding goal. Less than two years ago, the goal was to raise inflation – to go in the opposite direction, in other words. Kind of like the traffic between Norway and Sweden.

Down there in Swedish

When the court decides what “lady bits” mean.

**See the film**.
source: https://www.svtplay.se/snoppen-och-snippan

About twenty five years ago, an employee at RFSU (the National Association for Sexual Information) was tired of there being no female counterpart for that casual, everyday Swedish word for the male sexual reproductive organ – snopp. In a stroke of linguistic genius, the word snippa was launched – a cute, casual, neutral, non-technical, easy-to-use word with no actual sexual connotation.

The words snopp and snippa are now part of the general vocabulary, and can be found in all dictionaries. Snopp and Snippa even have their own song. They’re particularly useful when working for and with children. A recent decision by the Swedish Court of Appeals, however, has drawn the definition of snippa into the spotlight.

What’s a snippa?

In June, 2021, a man was found guilty of raping a ten-year-old girl. He appealed the decision, and the Court of Appeals this week freed him on all charges. The reason was that the girl had not been clear enough when she said that the man had reached into her underwear and put his finger up in her snippa.

The court wasn’t sure what exactly that meant, and looked up the word snippa in the Swedish Academy’s Dictionary (SAOB). There it defines the word snippa as the external female genital organs – not the internal cervix or vagina. Ergo, there had been no penetration. Ergo, no rape. The man was freed. And now there’s an uproar.

The definition of a crime

Many find it alarming that the court needed to look up a word in the dictionary. Many find it equally alarming that a single dictionary entry was behind the definitive decision on a person’s guilt in a major crime.

Using the SOAB was the correct choice. It is the official Swedish dictionary. Had the court looked at the Swedish Academy’s List of Words (SAOL), which is a more colloquial dictionary, they would have found that snippa meant all the female reproductive organs and not just the externals. They could also have asked any grade school student, parent, or teacher what snippa meant. It is unclear why they didn’t simply pose more questions, particularly when the nature of the crime was so reprehensible and when there was no doubt that some crime had been perpetrated.

Further questions

It is also unclear why the prosecutor left out the lesser crime of sexual molestation of a child. If that charge been included, the court could not have freed the man from all charges. The prosecutor has explained that the court, in pre-trial consultations, strongly inferred that including the lesser charge was “a stretch” alternately “a bit steep” and that is why she left it out. No one really knows what went on here. It is both incomprehensible and possibly another sort of crime.

In a further twist, two of the lay judges that presided over the case have since resigned. This was met with approval by the district chair of the Social Democratic party. To be a lay judge in Sweden you must be nominated by a political party. Upon receiving a lay judgeship, you are supposed to lay your political leanings aside. For some, it is perhaps natural that a political party here takes an interest in the workings and results of the judicial branch. For others, it is a strange overreach.

The pressure is on for the case to be taken all the way to the Supreme Court. We’ll know in the next couple weeks if that is going to happen. Perhaps there we’ll find out the definition of a word that half of Sweden lives with every day, and that puts a man behind bars for abusing.