The campaign manager for the Progressive Party in Reykjavík has declared Nigerian asylum seeker Tony Omos to be a “slave owner and pimp”. This is also not the first time he has spoken openly against ethnic minorities in Iceland.
Stundin reports that Svanur Guðmundsson – the campaign manager for the Progressive Party in Reykjavík, and the husband of Progressive city councilperson Guðfinna Jóhanna Guðmundsdóttir – has come to the defense of Reykjavík Chief of Police Sigríður Björk Guðjónsdóttir. The Data Protection Authority recently ruled that Sigríður broke the law when she sent personal information about Tony Omos to former Interior Minister assistant Gísli Freyr Valdórsson.
“It is unbelievable how this subject has been used to drag good people down in the name of a more flexible interpretation of the law,” Svanur wrote on Facebook, in connection with a news article on the story. “Let’s not forget that this story is about a slave owner and a pimp.”
Svanur added furthermore that foreigners be stripped of their legally-ensured right to privacy, saying, “Shouldn’t it be expected that privacy laws apply only to Icelanders?”
This is not the first time Svanur has spoken publicly against ethnic minorities in Iceland. DV reported in May 2014 that, on the subject of plans to allow a plot of land for the building of a mosque, Svanur asked, “Since when are Muslims a minority?”, apparently unaware that, according to data from Statistics Iceland, Muslims number about 1,300 people in a country of about 330,000.
The Progressive Party’s campaign in Reykjavík, which he managed, was also rife with anti-Muslim sentiment. Progressive city councilperson Sveinbjörg Birna Sveinbjörsdóttir told reporters she would, given the authority, reverse city council’s decision to grant the plot of land for building a mosque, and stated on national television that an influx of Muslims in Iceland could lead to forced marriages becoming a problem in this country, saying she wanted to “open a discussion on freedom of religion” in Iceland.
In the memo on Tony Omos that Gísli Freyr leaked to the press, Tony was accused of having been involved with a human trafficking case. In reality, the extent of his “involvement” was being questioned by police, who found that he was not, in fact, involved in human trafficking.
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