(Via the Stockholm Spectator Blog)

According to Dagens Nyheter, the Swedish security services (Säpo),

in collusion with Foreign Minister Leila Freivalds, have forced the website SD-Kuriren offline for publishing the Jyllands-Posten cartoons (SD-Kuriren is the house organ of the hard-right Swedish Democrats).

“We think that this was the best decision after we were contacted by the Foreign Ministry and Säpo,” Anna Larsson, vice president of hosting compant Levonline, told DN. Freivalds told DN that “it is terrible that a small group of extremists are exposing Swedes to danger [by reprinting the cartoons].”

The website belongs to a small, nationalist party, the Swedish Democrats, with  deep roots in Sweden's violent 1980s neo-Nazi movemement. Their very existence - and the fact that they have seats in more than 20 local legislatures - is bad enough. Now they will become martyrs of freedom of speech and possibly catapult into the national parliament in the elections in September.

The big daily morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter reports that the government ordered the website shut down because they want to prevent violence against Swedes in the Middle East, as well as islamist terror attacks on Swedish soil. (One such attack was narrowly averted in December.)

"'It is terrible that a small group of Swedish extremists are exposing Swedes to clear and present danger' says foreign minister Mrs. Laila Freivalds. The closing of the websites of the Swedish Democrats and their news magazine followed the news magazine's publication of one Muhammad cartoon. 'We thought it was the best thing to do after the security police and foreign ministry had contacted us' said Anna Larsson, vice president of the website host Levonline. /.../

'We have been in contact with the internet provider and presented our threat assessment to them. What that assessment looks like is secret' says Mr. Klas Bergenstrand, chief of the security police. /.../

Mr. Peter Danowsky, attorney and expert on freedom of speech and theb press, does not consider the actions of the security police and the foreign ministry to be of any concern. 'If the security police and the foreign ministry think that there is a threat and then relays that to the website host, then they are doing them a favor' he says. /.../

Several media in the Middle East have, according to Mrs. Freivalds, reported that 'a major Swedish newspaper' has published a Muhammad caricature cartoon. 'We know that there are extremists among muslims who will not be satisfied with staging demonstrations, but who take to violence - and it is from that perspective that we assess that there is a threat' says Mrs. Freivalds."