"Je Suis Charlie" in Gothenburg?

Sunday the 11th of January saw a memorial manifestation in support of freedom of expression even in Gothenburg. Some notable residents of French origin directly referred to the tragic events in Paris, while some Swedish press VIPs managed to widen the issue by giving an account of a whole array of threats directed at the press in many countries, even our own. Threats that come from radical political groups, from organized crime, religious authorities and even from political institutions on all levels of government.

Gothenburg Mayor Anneli Hulthén

It seemed only natural to embed the events in Paris into a wider context, making people aware of what is at stake when the freedom of expression is courtailed, besieged and attacked.
Even Gothenburg Mayor Anneli Hulthén condemned the violent attacks on a free press. Yet I myself may not have been the only one in the crowd who had a bad taste in the mouth while listening. This woman is not known as a friend of the press, especially not of the "digging" kind.
Later on Sweden's most eminent investigative journalist, Janne Josefsson, took to the microphone. And, thankfully, he did not refrain from exposing Hulthen's and other local politician's hypocrisy. Josefsson's indictment was delivered indirectly and without mentioning names. But any reasonably informed citizen understood what he meant.
The background? Josefsson and his investigative TV-crew has repeatedly been barred from attending public sessions of our City Council while covering a corruption scandal of gigantic proportions within the City of Gothenburg and several of its departments.

Janne Josefsson, investigative journalist

I'm fully conscious of the fact that today's memorial gathering was not held to dive into local conflicts. But this little puff of fresh air by just naming the hypocrisy lifted a numbing weight from many participants, as the strong applause for Josefsson clearly showed. This was the atmosphere needed to truly honor the journalists, cartoonists and the other victims who where brutally murdered in Paris.
While Hulthen's lacklustre delivery was hyped up by GP, Gothenburg's dominating newspaper, as "fiery", nothing was mentioned about Josefsson's speech at all. As a matter of fact, some net articles by the same paper "forgot" to include him in their list of speakers. An interesting omission, knowing that Josefsson after all was the only speaker widely known throughout the entire country, having reached a level of prominence we sometimes refer to as "world renowned in Sweden"...