A man was arrested by police in the Swedish city of Karlskrona over the weekend after allegedly making “Nazi gestures” in the middle of an LGBT Pride Parade.
An estimated 2,000 people took part in the Pride Parade on Sunday in Karlskrona, which saw those participating in the parade march through the centre of the port city. During the march, a man is said to have made “Nazi gestures” toward those participating in the parade according to local police.
Patrik Fors, the police press spokesperson commented on the incident which saw the man arrested after his gestures, telling broadcaster SVT, “What I do know is that a man has been taken into care and has now been handed over to the health service. At present, there is no suspicion of crime, but there may be hate speech.”
Sophia Ahlin organizer for Karlskrona Pride, added, “It was good that the police were able to intervene directly. But what I feel is that it was very nice that it went well, he was very aggressive.”
The incident comes just a week after a mass shooting at a gay bar in Oslo that took place just prior to the Norwegian capital’s Pride festivities that left two people dead.
The main suspect in the case, Iranian national Zaniar Matapour, is said to have had links to radical Islamic extremists, including Arfan Bhatti, an Islamist who created the group Profetens Ummah (The Prophet’s Community), a group with ties to the Islamic State terrorist group.
Elsewhere in Europe, however, Pride events have gone on without incident, including a parade in the German city of Cologne which is said to have seen around a million people participate on Sunday.
Sven Lehmann, the German government´s commissioner for the acceptance of sexual and gender diversity, stated that the parade was a signal against extremists saying, “Everywhere in the world, unfortunately also in Germany, there are extremists are at work who do not want to grant us our freedom.”
“The strong signal from Cologne is: We will never let them take away this freedom,” he said.