Sweden's Newly-Minted Civil Affairs Minister Under Fire for Nazi Salute to White Power Music

Despite damning photographs, 33-year-old Ida Karkiainen has claimed no memory of such an event and maintained she has always supported people's equal value, which is why she became a Social Democrat.

Sweden's newly-appoined Civil Affairs Minister Ida Karkiainen has landed in hot water over a photograph with a Nazi salute.

Unbecoming party shots of the 33-year-old appointee in the new Magdalena Andersson government in her youth were published by the news outlet Nyheter Idag. According to its sources, the parties were arranged at Ida Karkiainen's and her former boyfriend's home in Haparanda where Nazi music was played. The sources also identified Karkiainen's boyfriend as a driving force in the so-called "white power" environment.

"I remember her as being pretty quiet until she got drunk. Among other things, music by bands like Pluton Svea was played and it was at her home", the source told Nyheter Idag.

The group Pluton Svea is known for Nazi and anti-Semitic texts that pay homage to the swastika and celebrate the Holocaust.

In her comment, Karkiainen maintained having no memory of the event, stressing that she has always stood for the equal value of people.

"It is a picture where I make a gesture that can be interpreted as a Nazi greeting and I have no memory of having made such a gesture. I understand what it looks like. But I have never done anything like that to sympathise with such an abominable ideology as Nazism. In that case, it has been to ridicule or deride it", Ida Karkiainen told SVT.

Asked by the newspaper Aftonbladet about whether she will maintain her post, she said that it is up to Magdalena Andersson to judge.

"It is a matter of trust, of course. I have been very clear and said that I have never sympathised with that ideology. I have always stood up for equal value and the equal rights of all people, and I feel very confident about it. That was also why I became a Social Democrat", Karkiainen said.

Yet, netizens on social media were rather ruthless and showed no sympathy.

"What stones did Magdalena Andersson turn to find a sieg-heiling Social Democrat?", one user asked ironically.

Vilka stenar vände Magdalena Andersson på för att hitta en heilande sosse? #svpol pic.twitter.com/5O9tlMI3zu

— Roger större än Expressen o Aftonbladet Sahlström (@ROGSAHL) December 6, 2021

"The red-brown ones. Department: It's okay when we do it", another one quipped, posting a video of Karkiainen faced with a journalist's question on whether she has "skeletons in her closet" claiming to be "snow-white".

Dom rödbruna?

Avdelning: It's okay when we do it. pic.twitter.com/kG6oaCR66q

— Emoll🐘 (@Emilpolitik) December 6, 2021

"Oops! It is difficult to be spotless, but some stains are not the same as others", another one mused.

"To be fired in 3, 2 1...", yet another netizen predicted.

Karkiainen has been an MP since 2014 and has a background as a local politician in her native Haparanda municipality.