The Swedish far-left “anti-hate” organisation Expo Foundation has expressed outrage after the Swedish Defence Research Institute (FOI) included the group in a report on the violent far-left scene.
The group, which was given $25,000 by left-wing billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundations in 2014, demanded answers from the FOI, which operates under the Swedish Ministry of Defence, as to why they were included in a policy paper alongside violent far-left groups like Antifa, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports.
The report, entitled “The Digital Match – Autonomous Movements Online”, lists several far-left organisations such as Antifa, the Syndicalist Youth League, and the Animal Liberation Front alongside the Expo Foundation.
Publisher of the foundation’s magazine Expo Daniel Poohl slammed the report calling it “sloppy”.
“What I reacted to is the fact that the Expo Foundation is mentioned in a way that it appears that we are part of this environment that, of course, based on the assignment FOI has received, is about some kind of left-wing violent extremism. And that’s a grossly erroneous picture of our business,” Poohl said.
Maria Hugosson Bygge, Press Officer at FOI, responded to criticisms from Poohl and others on social media saying: “The researchers behind the report will take part and go through the criticisms levelled at it and look at whether they think there is anything to it.”
Late last year the foundation attempted to publicly distance itself from far-left violent supporters after it published a report on a right-wing library and political centre and one supporter wrote on Expo’s Facebook page that they wanted to them burn down.
Expo also has links to other “anti-hate organisations” which have received money from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations such as UK far-left activist group HOPE not Hate (HnH). Current HnH researcher Patrik Hermansson previously wrote for Expo magazine.
HnH has also been connected to Antifa through head researcher Dr. Joe Mulhall who has previously tweeted at Antifa Twitter accounts, on one occasion asking for their thoughts regarding a documentary Mulhall had made for HnH in Kurdish-controlled Northern Iraq in late 2014.
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