The dissident party Alternative for Sweden (AfS) came into prominence early this year. It owes its recent rise in part to the dissatisfaction felt by some supporters of the anti-immigration party Sweden Democrats, which was perceived to be taking an insufficiently strong stance against mass migration and Islamization. The more popular the AfS has become, the more vigorously the Powers That Be have worked to suppress it. The most recent action against it was the closure of its YouTube channel.

Many thanks to K. from Germany for translating this article from the Swedish dissident website Fria Tider:

AFS: YouTube Has Permanently Deleted Us

23 July 2018

YouTube has permanently deleted the channel of the Alternativ för Sverige [Alternative for Sweden, AFS], the party confirmed on Monday. The party is accused by YouTube of “agitation against a population group” [hets mot folkgrupp] because they uploaded a clip about a SVT news anchor who speaks broken Swedish.

The nationalist party Alternative for Sweden was informed today that YouTube on Monday morning has permanently deleted the party’s official channel on the service.

The reason given was a video clip the party had linked to regarding a news anchor for SVT who spoke Swedish badly.

Under the video clip the party had published the text: “News anchors should be able to speak FLUENT SWEDISH!” This appeal is seen by YouTube as constituting “agitation against a population group” and violating the video service’s so-called “community guidelines”, writes the party in a press release.

According to AFS, the channel had hundreds of thousands of visitors and was the second largest among those belonging to Swedish political parties, measured by the number of subscribers.

The channel’s homepage now only reads “This account has been terminated for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.”

“The Alternative for Sweden is on its way into parliament, and the politically correct establishment does everything in its power to throw a monkey wrench in our path. The ‘agitation against a population group’ legislation concerns thought crime, and is employed by the establishment to silence opposition and limit freedom of expression. That it counts as agitation against a population group to think that news anchors in Sweden should be able to speak fluent Swedish shows what a joke of a law this is. The ‘agitation against a population group’ legislation needs to be ripped up immediately,” says party leader Gustav Kasselstrand.

“We have been subject to censorship on YouTube and other social media time and again. That foreign private companies with a monopoly have the ability to dictate which opinions and which political parties are able to reach out to the general public is one of the greatest threats to the freedom of expression today. The Alternative for Sweden is the only party that wants to forbid political censorship in social media.”