The Swedish Activist Who Stood Up To Neo-Nazis Has Done It Again
Maria-Teresa Asplund was photographed at an anti-Nazi demonstration in Stockholm over the weekend. “It was chaos,” she told Buzzfeed News.
This is Maria-Teresa Asplund.
Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP / Getty Images
Over the weekend, she was one of hundreds of anti-Nazi protesters who took to the streets of Stockholm, Sweden, in demonstration against a pro-Nazi march.
Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP / Getty Images
Asplund, 42, who goes by the name Tess, first came to attention in May when a photographer took an iconic shot of her standing against neo-Nazis.
David Lagerlof/TT News Agency/Press Association Images
In an interview over Facebook Messenger, Asplund told BuzzFeed News she felt that racists around the world had been emboldened by the American election results.
The planned Saturday rally of the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR), was the biggest rally NMR had ever staged. The group, set up in 1997, claimed 600 people marched from the central Kungsträdgården park to outside Sweden's parliament in Gamla Stan, Mynttorget Square. But hundreds of anti-racism and anti-Nazi protesters also turned out to demonstrate.
"I was there from the beginning, but I had to leave after two and a half hours 'cause a [member of the] police hit my arm pretty bad," Asplund said. "It was chaos the whole time I was there".
Although she did not see any violence between the neo-Nazis and the demonstrators personally, she said: "I know there was." Asplund, who said she has campaigned against racism for more than 20 years, said people need to stand up against racism more than ever before.