Following the “slave auction” at Hallands nation last semester, one of the students involved is suspected for hate crimes. The attorney is also pursuing a charge for slader against a artist, for a poster that was circulated following the auction.
Mattias Larsson, an attorney experienced in dealing with hate crimes, is spearheading both prosecutions.
“(The action) which can eventually be charged as a crime”, says Larsson, “is dressing oneself up and conducting a slave auction before a large group of people, thereby expressing contempt towards a group of people.”
He has requested that the police hold two people for questioning. The sooner this is done, the sooner he can produce a coherent prosecution charge, Larsson said to Skånska dagbladet.
The events in question occurred last April 16th at a Hallands nation sittning, which was jungle-themed. One student was clad in auctioneer garments while three other students, bound by ropes with faces painted black, stood to be auctioned off. Later, one of the “slaves” reportedly responded “I am a nigger” when asked what he was dressed up as.
While only one person has been suspected so far, the prosecutor insists that several more individuals should be held to account. Those individuals’ intent is the question, according to Larsson, to what degree they were aware of the auction’s offensiveness.
“It is entirely clear that (the students) displayed poor judgment”, says Larsson. “The question is whether it is punishable or not. The context will be taken into account, including the consideration that it was a student sittning.”
Furthermore, artist Dan Park is suspected for slander and hate crimes after posting a ridiculing image of Jallow Momodou, a spokesman for the Afro-Swedish National Association who reported the incident to the police.
The picture, depicting Momodou with a chain around his neck and reading, “Our nigger slave has run away”, was posted throughout central Lund and in Malmö. The artist is claiming he is innocent, and defends his action on grounds of his constitutionally-protected freedom of speech.
” I think i am innocent. What the hell, it was simply a humor thing to make a poster about the Hallands story”, says Dan Park to Lundagard.se
the article is a rewrite from Lundagard and Skånska dagbladet.
