Egyptian immigrant Ahmed Hussein Agaiza was apprehended by police in Karlstad December 18, the same day Mohammed Zari, another Egyptian seeking asylum in Sweden, was arrested in his home in Stockholm. A few hours later both were placed against their will on an Egyptian government airplane bound for Egypt.

Agaiza and Zari face charges of terrorism and severe prison terms in Egypt, which they fled some 10 years ago. The government decision to extradite them was based on secret testimony by Säpo, the Swedish security police. The arrest and deportation was carried out extremely swiftly, skipping legal procedures. Stockholm claims to have "very clear indications that these individuals had leadership positions in organizations involved with terrorist acts," according to Gun-Britt Andersson, state secretary for development cooperation and migration policy. Andersson, however, did not disclose the evidence.

In justifying the move, Stockholm claims to have received written guarantees from the government of Egypt that Agaiza and Zari "would not be put to death or subjected to torture and that they would receive fair retrials," the Washington Post reported.

In a similar fashion, the Swedish government carried out Washington's demands to impose sanctions against three Swedish citizens who are originally from Somalia, and Al Barakaat, a banking network through which Somalis working in Sweden and other countries send money to relatives in Somalia.  
 
Secret evidence
On November 13, Stockholm froze the assets of Abdirisak Aden, Ahmed Yusuf, and Abdulaziz Ali, stating Washington had presented evidence that the three have had connections with and sent money to "terrorists" in Somalia. Stockholm also agreed to keep the evidence secret.

Requests by attorneys Thomas Olsson and Leif Silbersky, who represent the accused, that Washington present the evidence have been turned down. On February 2, U.S. officials agreed to meet with Olsson and Silbersky to discuss the matters.

Organizations and individuals have raised funds to help Aden, Yusuf, and Ali make ends meet since they cannot withdraw money or receive any social security benefits from local authorities.

These anti-immigrant attacks are being bolstered by a campaign against "foreign cultures" that is gaining steam in the capitalist press.

On January 21, Fadime Sahindal, a young Kurdish woman, was shot to death at her mother's house in Uppsala. Her father has been arrested on murder charges and has confessed to the crime.

Calling the murder an "honor killing," the press began targeting "Kurdish culture" as being backward, patriarchal, and oppressive of women. This asserted backwardness is contrasted to what the Swedish ruling class claims is peaceful, democratic, and civilized society in Sweden, one that defends women's and democratic rights.

For example, Yvonne Hirdman, a professor at the historical institution of Stockholm University, wrote in the opinion page of Dagens Nyheter, the country's largest newspaper, that Sweden "has an official gender order that's built upon justice, equality, equal rights and responsibilities.... A culture to audaciously defend and prefer over the gender order that is behind daughter murders. Couldn't we even stand up and defend it, when Fadime gave her life for it?"

Referring to Sahindal's father, the chief district court judge and justice department secretary said that it "is too easy to become a Swedish citizen and too hard to get deported by crime," and urged deportation be made the "chief rule in all harsh crimes" involving immigrants.

The press has played up the fact that Sahindal sought to break with some members of her family who thought that she behaved improperly, for example, by having a Swedish boyfriend.

While putting a blind eye to imperialism's role in drawing wealth from the semicolonial countries, keeping them underdeveloped, and thereby maintaining the semifeudal social and economic relations of the rural family structures, bourgeois columnists claim that a killing like this could never occur in Swedish families and such actions are foreign to Swedish culture.

What is usually not reported in the articles is the fact that every 10 days a Swedish woman is beaten to death by her husband. Nor are government closing of crisis centers for abused women highlighted. One such office in Gothenburg visited by 1,000 women a year was recently closed due to lack of government funding.  
 
 
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