‘Not welcome’: How Sweden’s far right took over Stockholm Central Station

Stockholm, Sweden – When Neira Tokalija, a 39-year-old therapist, saw the slogans of Sweden’s far-right party plastered wall-to-wall across Stockholm Central Station, she felt a familiar sense of fear.

As a child, Tokalija had fled Bosnia and Herzegovina with her family after ethnic cleansing campaigns targeting Bosniaks.

After seeing dozens of campaign posters and installations across Central Station by the Sweden Democrats (SD) , a party with neo-Nazi roots, “it made me feel like it doesn’t matter how much I try as a second-generation immigrant; I’ll never be Swedish enough”, she said.

SD had spent about $100,000 on the station campaign with posters that read “If you commit crimes, live off benefits, don’t learn Swedish or misbehave, you’re not welcome”.

The campaign came weeks before Sweden’s general election on September 13. The SD, which is polling second, could enter government for the first time if the right-wing bloc wins.

The tone of the campaign’s messaging, which ran for one week in mid-August, Tokalija said, evoked a deep historical trauma.

SD also ran several separate campaigns across various Swedish transport networks.

In western Sweden, the party ran provocative advertisements on buses that read: “Do you miss Mogadishu? The repatriation grant will help you get home.”