After groups of Muslims rampaged through Swedish cities, set police vehicles on fire, hurled stones at police, and injured 26 officers on Easter weekend, German public-funded media giants ARD and ZDF pointed to Sweden’s “problem with right-wing extremism.”
On Twitter, ZDF wrote to its followers that there were “riots at right-wing demos” in the city of Malmö.
The ZDF article attached to the Twitter posts reads: “After the approval of right-wing rallies, there were riots again in Sweden during the night.” Only far below in the article are readers informed that there were “clashes” between “counter-demonstrators” and the police, with no mention that these “counter protesters” were Muslim-Arab youthsm, with many of them screaming on video “Allahu Akbar” while setting police vehicles on fire.
To the uninformed reader, the riots actually involved right-wing extremists attacking police.
The article seems to be an attempt by the ZDF to downplay the role of Muslims in yet another public disturbance in the already highly-troubled immigrant neighborhoods in Swedish cities.
In Germany, all residents are forced to pay license fees into ARD and ZDF, which are both networks known for their extreme left-wing bias.
While the extremely small far-right Danish group Stram Kurs did threaten to burn the Quran publicly in Sweden, the police are saying that the Muslims involved in the rioting only used the burnings as a pretext for their real goal, which was attacking the police and rioting.
‘Young people’ riot
The ARD’s “Tagesschau” follows the same tact as ZDF, writing: “In Sweden there were violent protests in several cities on Saturday evening and Sunday night after a right-wing extremist party was allowed to hold rallies.”
Whether the violence occurred at the right-wing “rallies” or came from the counter-protests is left an open question for readers of the article. Tagesschau simply refers to the Muslim rioters — who are screaming “Allahu Akbar” on video — as “young people.”
Neither paper referred to the ample amount of video of the attacks that have been posted across social media and which are available through the Associated Press.
The only hint that Arab-Islamic youths had anything to do with the unrest in Sweden is a quote at the end of the Taggesschau article, in which Malaysia’s Foreign Minister, Saifuddin Abdullah spoke out and criticized the burning of the Quran before calling for “peaceful coexistence.”
Other German-language outlets had even more egregious content on the riots, with the Austrian online portal OE24 headline for a video reading: “Riots in Malmö: right-wing extremists set fire to a bus.” This is an outright lie. No right-wing extremists were involved in any of the rioting or arson attacks over the weekend.
