An advertising campaign by VisitSweden has attracted controversy after the citizen controlling their Twitter account posted comments about gay people and Jews. Mother-of-two Sonja Abrahamsson has apologised for any upset she caused while manning the @Sweden account, which is taken over by different citizen each week.
“What’s the fuzz with Jews”, Ms Abrahamsson Tweeted. “You can’t even see if a person is a Jew, unless you see their penises, and even if you do, you can’t be sure!?”, she wrote, adding that the Nazis used to make Jews wear the Star of David so they could be recognised.
After receiving a barrage of negative comments, however, Ms Abrahamsson apologised, saying, “I’m sorry if some of you find the question offensive. That’s was not my purpose. I just don’t get why some people hates Jews so much.”
Maria Ziv, the marketing director of VisitSweden, said the comments will remain on the thread, but that if they had been deemed to be racist, “we would have taken them down”.
Earlier in the week, Ms Abrahamsson posted a manipulated image of Feddie Mercury standing over a table of food with, the caption, “This pic I call ‘hungry gay with aids'”.
The account, which is followed by 40,000 people, was previously managed by a lesbian truck driver and a female priest, but Ms Abrahamsson, who also uploaded a picture of herself breastfeeding, has attracted the most complaints.
Speaking to the BBC, Malin Nyberg of VisitSweden, said, “This is really showing just how many different kinds of people there are in Sweden. By doing this, people will get more interested and curious about Sweden. When things are not as you think they are, you get curious and you want to know more.”