Kent Ekeroth

Kent Alexander Ekeroth (born 11 September 1981) is a Swedish-Kazakh politician of the Sweden Democrats.^[1][2] He has been the member of the Riksdag since 4 October 2010 (elected in the 2010 general election), representing the Stockholm County constituency.^[3] In parliament, he has been a member of the Committee on Justice and a deputy member of Committee on European Union Affairs.^[3] Ekeroth has studied economics.^[4] He joined the Sweden Democrats in 2006.^[5] Since 2007, he is the party's secretary for international affairs.^[6] In October 2006, Ekeroth was fired from his internship at the Swedish embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, after the embassy had found out about his involvement with the Sweden Democrats.^[4] The embassy's actions were later criticised by the Swedish Chancellor of Justice, Göran Lambertz, who ruled that the firing was illegal and a breach of the Swedish constitutional laws.^[7] The Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, who are responsible for all Swedish embassies abroad, also had to pay damages to Ekeroth.^[7] Ekeroth is a board member of the pan-European eurosceptic European Alliance for Freedom.^[8]

In November 2012, Ekeroth took a break from his duties after the leakage of a video filmed with his mobile phone from an event which became known as Järnrörsskandalen ("Iron bar scandal").^[9][10] Erik Almqvist had two years earlier published an edited version of the video to show how he and his party colleagues Ekeroth and Christian Westling had been verbally abused that evening.^[11] The film released in November 2012 by Expressen showed Ekeroth and his colleagues arming themselves with iron bars after brawling with a drunken man.^[12] Ekeroth argued with a young woman, whom he allegedly pushed against a car, while he can be heard telling her: "Back off! Back off!".^[12] Almqvist used racist and sexist remarks without Ekeroth reacting against it.^[13] The police came to the place and the drunken man said that he saw Ekeroth pushing the woman. Ekeroth and his colleagues had returned when they heard the sirens and said to the police that they had been threatened by the man.^[12] While Erik Almqvist was forced to resign, Ekeroth remained in the parliament. Social democrat and chairman of the Committee on Justice Morgan Johansson was quoted as saying "I wonder what his constituents will think of him being in the Riksdag and getting paid without any real duties".^[14]

Ekeroth later invoiced the Swedish newspapers who used the film or stills from the event. For example, Svenska Dagbladet received an invoice of 51,725 Swedish kronor (c. 5,500 Euros).^[15] Ekeroth has denied connections to the far-right news site Avpixlat though he has been found to govern the anonymous editorial staff via emails and the site uses his personal bank account for its finances.^[16] Avpixlat has been called a "hate site" for its expressions of violence and xenophobia.^[17] Ekeroth has also denied publishing any articles at the news site, but was quickly found to have published articles as recently as one month before his denial. The tax authorities also found him legally obliged to pay taxes on those donations to Avpixlat, of which 70,000SEK had immediately been further transferred to other private accounts owned by Ekeroth.^[16]

Kent Ekeroth was born to a Jewish mother^[18] originally from Kazakhstan in Central Asia ^[19] (then a part of the Soviet Union) who arrived as a refugee via Poland to Sweden in the 1970s^[20] together with her mother (Ekeroth´s grandmother) and sisters.^[21] Ekeroth has Jewish heritage, with an atheistic life stance.^[18][22]

Kent Ekeroth was on 24 November 2016 reported to the police for assault after hitting a 20 year old male in the face. The victim claims that he made a sarcastic comment relating to the "Iron bar scandal" towards the politician before Ekeroth punched him. Ekeroth is arguing self-defense while witnesses from the queue assure that no punches were thrown at Ekeroth by the victim or anyone else.^[23] Prior to the attack Ekeroth had twice been denied entry to the nightclub in question, Solidaritet^[24] at Stureplan in Stockholm. The club´s bouncers claim that Ekeroth was highly intoxicated and was acting aggressively at the time. According to club management, Ekeroth was denied entry to the club as they could not guarantee his and other patrons safety due to the politician´s highly intoxicated state, while Ekeroth claims that he was denied entry due to his political views and also that he was attacked one month earlier on his way from work. The incident is under investigation by Säpo, the Swedish Security Service. Jimmie Åkesson the leader of the populist right wing party has asked Ekeroth to take a 'political time-out'.. Ekeroth has a previous track record of being involved in bar/club incidents,^[25] both as attacker and victim.^[26]

Ekeroth has in a National Swedish Radio Sveriges Radio interview^[27] traced the origins of his political views to his school days where he went to an immigrant-dominated class in Halmstad and was bullied by what he calls "groups of immigrants from Africa and the Middle East" and connected his experience to the overall immigration problems.^[28] Other students from his time at Östergårdsskolan in Halmstad confirm in interviews that Ekeroth was "a quiet, shy kid" who was heavily bullied by his class and "perhaps the entire school".^[29]

References

External links

• Kent Ekeroth, official website and blog
• Kent Ekeroth at the Swedish parliament