Far-right 'active club' members jailed over racially motivated assaults in Sweden

Four men from the Swedish branch of the international far-right “active club” network have been sentenced to prison after they were found guilty of several racially motivated assaults in Stockholm.

- Miranda Bryant

In a verdict handed down on Tuesday, a Stockholm district court said the three violent attacks, which targeted three men in quick succession on the night of 27 August, constituted hate crimes.

The case, which is the first of its kind in Sweden, represents a landmark moment for the active club movement, a network of loosely structured groups that meet in gyms and aim to promote white nationalist, misogynist and hyper-masculine ideology. In a statement, the court said Aktivklubb Sverige (AKS) was “considered a far-right organisation with clear racist elements and which engages in martial arts”.

Within a 30-minute period, the four men, who were out on a bar crawl, attacked three men who, the prosecutor said, were selected based on their ethnicity. At least two of the men were seen making Nazi salutes.

The men, aged between 21 and 23, were jailed for between six months and three years and will have to pay damages.

The prosecutor described the assaults as unprovoked acts of violence. One of the men was also convicted of vandalism, including for drawing a far-right symbol on a shop window.