On 26 November 2020, Linda Karlström was given the award Coach of the Year in the village of Kronoby, Finland. Nine months later, she sued the state of Sweden for an invasion of her private life. She won.
The state appealed. On 30 September 2024, round two of one of the most bizarre processes in Swedish legal history will reconvene at the Svea Court of Appeal in Stockholm.
The character assassination for which Sweden’s state television SVT was found guilty had been carefully prepared over the span of a year and a half, culminating in December 2020, when SVT’s ”Dokument Inifrån” (Eng. ”Documentary from the Inside”) aired what it called an ”investigative documentary series” against vaccine critics. In reality, the series was a world-class violation of the private life of an individual, and it ended with the state, as the founder of SVT and responsible for the rule of law in the kingdom, losing and being ordered to pay damages to Linda Karlström.
With that, the high strangeness of the affair could have come to an end. It had not.
Despite Linda’s victory, the district court determined, contrary to practice and without legal basis, that she should cover her own legal costs.
The process continues at 9:30 AM on Monday, 30 September 2024, at Svea Hovrätt in downtown Stockholm. The nearest metro station is Gamla Stan.
Sources
- NewsVoice: Government of Sweden to Stand Trial for Persecuting Vaccine Sceptics
- SVT Dokument Inifrån: Vaccinkrigarna
- Hovrätten: Staten överklagar
- Hovrätten: Hovrättens tidtabell