The U.S. Embassy in Stockholm a few weeks ago approached the Swedish government with a request for a meeting to find out more about the state of free speech in the country.
According to daily SvD, that meeting happened on April 8th and involved two non-political officials from the Government Offices and representatives from the embassy. The government did not want to comment in detail on the discussions, but confirmed that they focused on Sweden’s freedom of expression laws.
This is not the first time the U.S. commitment to freedom of speech has been brought up in communications with European countries. Last week, a Washington source told British The Independent that PM Keir Starmer should expect to be pressured to repeal hate speech laws before he could expect a trade deal with the U.S.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference raised concerns about freedom of speech in Europe. In his address, he criticized Sweden’s limitations on free speech, referencing the case of Salwan Najem, a Swedish citizen of Iraqi origin who was convicted of “incitement to hatred against an ethnic group” for burning the Quran.
