Probe faults Cold War activities of Swedish secret service Tuesday,
17-Dec-2002 10:20AM Story from AFP
Copyright 2002 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
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STOCKHOLM, Dec 17 (AFP) - Sweden's secret services violated constitutional
rights as they spied on leftist groups -- and some 100,000 individuals --
during the anti-communist period of the Cold War, an investigating
commission found in a report published Tuesday.
The 3,000-page report entitled "National Security and Personal Integrity"
lists wire-tapping operations, documentation and surveillance of "Swedish
organisations and political groups constituting a threat, or believed to
constitute a threat, to national security."
The activities mostly took place during the 1950s and 1960s, when
anti-Communism was at its peak in Western Europe and the United States.
During that period, the secret services had files on more than 100,000
individuals, believed to be communists or communist sympathisers, "at times
on flimsy grounds", the report found.
Wire-tapping, in particular, was used indiscriminately, and often targeted
"individuals other than the object of suspicion and thus violated their
personal integrity".
The registration of political opinions was made illegal in 1969, but the
practice has continued, mostly because it suited police chiefs and the
governments of the day, the report claims.
"Official guidelines were often written in a manner that could be
interpreted in several ways. In this way it became possible to both satisfy
political opinion and at the same time provide the Security Police with the
authority deemed necessary in light of national security," the report said
in its conclusion.
The Swedish judiciary has in recent years awarded compensation to several
people who were sacked from their jobs after the secret police (Saepo)
handed evidence on their political or trade union activities to their
employers.
gab/liu/jh/ds
Sweden-police
Latvian Defense Minister: Many Members of Latvian Parliament Are Moscow's Spies
One fifth of deputies of the Latvian Sejm work for Moscow and it is not
possible to trust them with secret information.....( Pravda, 19 Dec 02)
