The far-right Sweden Democrats party has suspended a local politician and a media personality for making comments about Anne Frank. In an Instagram post that has since been deleted, Rebecka Fallenkvist described Anne Frank as “immoral” and “horny”.

Fallenkvist was elected councilor of the Stockholm Regional Council late last month. She is also one of the faces of the online media channel Riks. This channel was founded by the Sweden Democrats and often treats issues from a right angle.

Israeli ambassador calls message ‘disrespectful’

The deleted Instagram post contained a copy of Anne Frank’s diary, in which Fallenkvist wrote: “Fifty pages later Anne Frank strikes me as nothing but immoral. The horniness itself.” A screenshot of the post was shared by Israel’s ambassador to Sweden, Ziv Nevo Kulman, among others.

The ambassador described the message as “disrespectful” and “in stark contrast to Sweden’s efforts to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive”.

The party has now suspended Fallenkvist. She is not allowed to be politically active and will not be shown on the Riks channel for the time being. “We take Rebecka’s callous and inappropriate language on social media seriously and are launching an internal investigation with our human resources department,” a party spokesman told the national tabloid Aftonbladet, among others. “She has been suspended pending this investigation.”

According to Fallenkvist, her Instagram post was misunderstood. “The diary is a beautiful representation of human kindness and anger,” she told national newspaper Dagens Nyheter. “In the early chapters, Anne is like any other girl, living her life at peace and interested in boys (which is what I have described). The good contrasts with the evil of Nazism. My message was to describe the goodness in Anne, but don’t downplay the evil she’s faced.”

Dispute about a possible Hitler salute

It’s not the first time politicians have been discredited. When her party won last month’s general election, Fallenkvist spoke of a “helg-seger,” which literally means “a weekend victory,” but could also be a pun on the words “hell seger.” This is the Swedish interpretation of the Nazi slogan “Sieg Heil”. Fallenkvist said she regretted her decision to give an interview while intoxicated, but denied doing a variant of a Hitler salute.

In last month’s national elections, the Sweden Democrats received the most votes within the right-wing bloc they formed with other parties. Despite this, they are not part of the minority government agreed this week. However, the party will have a direct influence on politics through a construction of tolerance.

Tomorrow the Swedish parliament will vote on the new minority government. It will consist of Liberal Conservatives, Liberals and Christian Democrats.