I read a very disturbing article tonight.
A Swedish civil servant lost his post at the Migration Board (Migrationsverket) after six years for keeping a pro Israel blog! Now this blog was not advocating violence towards Palestinians, did not use inflammatory language or incite people to cause violence.
Lennart Ericsson fought the case and the court ruled he had been fired without reason which is a serious breach of Swedish employment law and that he should be re-instated.
According to The Local the Migration Board have apparently stated that they will not be following the court order but will be compensating Mr Ericsson with 1.2m Swedish Kronor. Unbelievable!
You have to give Mr Ericsson some credit here, he has refused the money and wants to go back to his old job. He has done nothing wrong apart from express his own opinions on a private blog.
I could understand the Migration Boards view if the pro Israel blogger had been found to have been prejudiced towards Palestinian or Arab applicants but according to the Migration Board lawyers Mr Ericsson’s worst offence was to describe the Hamas leader a ‘terrorist’ instead of a ‘Palestinian freedom fighter.’
Only the other day I blogged on the cruelty of Israel’s bombing of Gaza, politically Mr Ericsson and I would disagree on a lot when it comes to the Middle East. However I cannot help but support a guy who has been sacked unfairly for keeping a blog.
This story reminds me of something that I would expect to happen in North Africa or Saudi but not Sweden.
You can read more about this on his blog Sapere Aude, if you are a democrat and believe in freedom of speech the please surf on over and drop him a message of support.
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{ 2 comments }
I think this is a rather complex issue.
If the media reports are correct then I certainly support Mr Ericsson.
I can also see it from the Migration Board’s perspective in that they have to be perceived to be even handed. However, then they should have made clear in advance their policy on blogs and demonstrated that their policy was not in breach with laws on freedom of expression.
Furthermore, sacking him seems a very draconian and, as it turns out, unlawful response. I don’t wish there to be a witch-hunt but I would like to be assured that the individual responsible for the firing decision has been suitably sanctioned for breaking the law and destroying the career of an innocent man.
I recall an incident at Migration Board some time ago when it was discovered that workers were holding little parties (in work time) following successful deportations. I find an office hours celebration of some poor sod’s return to a third world hell hole to be inhumane and more worthy of dismissal than an opinion stated on a blog.
Happy New Year Dave!
I would not normally have commented on this as there are always two sides to every story. However the fact that the court ruled in Mr Ericsson demonstrates that something isn’t right with this.
I checked out Mr Ericsson’s blog and could only find historical and political viewpoints, nothing heavy. If he was supporting underground Jewish terror gangs then fair enough but from what I can see this is a perfectly law abiding blog. I am sure the police would have got involved if there was anything naughty involved here.
I also hope the guy at Migrationsverket gets fired, but I also wonder how much of our tax money has gone into this? Truly shocking.
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