Meanwhile, at The Red Square in Moscow...

Pyotr Pavlensky, a Russian performance artist, today stripped naked and nailed his scrotum to a Red Square cobblestone. The performance is called "Freeze".

The artist sitting naked outside Lenin's Mausoleum in
Moscow, Russia, before police covered him with a blanket.

The Saint Petersburg-based artist said in a statement posted on the Grani.ru website that he was trying to draw attention to Russian society's development into a 'police state'.

Update 11/12/13: The video is taken down by YouTube with a peculiar statement of reasons.

Pyotr now faces up to 15 days of administrative arrest for disorderly conduct.

Narrow-Minded Xenophobe

What is the matter with right-wing gay men? Why do so many of them turn out to be stupid, narrow-minded, sexist and bigoted twats?

Not all, mind you, because I know quite a few conservative gay men who are perfectly sane and pleasant to be around, although they have this strange preoccupation with finances, taxes and "the holy market" and these always has to be given priority before the welfare of people (my words, not theirs).

Tobias Billström, photo by Pawel Flota

Meet Tobias Billström, Sweden's Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy, the only out gay person in the Swedish government and a member of the right-wing party Moderaterna ("The Moderates" [sic!]).

Tobias Billström has for a long time called unwanted attention to himself by making stupid and ridiculous statements.

Lately he in an interview, when arguing about who the people are that are hiding undocumented immigrants in Sweden, said "Sometimes we are given the impression that the undocumented person who is hidden lives with a nice blond Swedish lady in her 50-60's who wants to help. But that is not the case. Most people live with their compatriots who are neither blond, nor blue-eyed."

Today he was - once again - forced to retract and apologize for that xenophobic statement. 

In my mind his apology should not and cannot save him, because I believe his statement expressed his true opinion in the matter. Tobias Billström is an embarrassment for Sweden, the Swedish government, his party and for himself. The sooner the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt realizes and acknowledges this and fires Tobias Billström, the better.

With the Sweden Democratic Party getting seats in the Swedish parliament in the last election and the growing xenophobic sentiments in our country we cannot afford to have a minister that expresses inexcusable opinions that should not be heard from a politician claiming to support a democratic and civilized society and governance.

Clouded Transparency

A fundamental part of the Swedish democratic structure is the rule that everything is public unless expressly declared to be classified by certain strict criteria. Most other nations have the opposite rule, where everything is secret unless expressly declared as public. 

These rules have been considered so important in Sweden that the laws surrounding them have been made into constitutional laws since 1766. According to the rules every document received, dispatched or drawn up by a public authority are to be made available without delay or cost to the public. The documents should be recorded in a diary without delay showing
a) the date the document was received, dispatched or drawn up by the authority,
b) the serial number or other designation that has been given to the document,
c) from whom the document has been received or to whom it has been dispatched and
d) a brief summary of what the document pertains.

Today it was revealed that the Cabinet Office has been fiddling with the rules in an attempt to cover up a scandal that erupted earlier this year concerning a weapons factory collaboration between Sweden and the Saudi Arabian dictatorship. An email from 2010 has been removed from the Cabinet Office´s diary contrary to all rules. The email contained sensitive information showing that the Swedish government was well aware of the illegal and irregular setup of the collaboration, long before the time when the government have previously admitted to any knowledge of the scheme.
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The fact that it has been revealed that the highest public officials in the country have been involved in such unconstitutional acts that have undermined well established rules of the Swedish democracy is certain to have serious ramifications.