Sweden’s public broadcasters must stop treating verifiable war crimes as “disputed narratives.” Journalism is not neutrality — it is accountability.

📢 Why We’re Speaking Out

As a concerned citizen, I was shocked to hear a SVT correspondent say, when asked about the situation on the ground in Gaza:

“We don’t really know what’s happening, because there are three different narratives — one from Israel’s military, one from Hamas, and one from aid organisations.”

This is not journalism.
This is a moral failure.

There is a critical difference between honest uncertainty and wilful evasion.

When journalists downplay or obscure atrocities — not due to lack of evidence, but out of fear of being seen as “biased” — they are not being neutral.
They are helping erase the truth.

🎙️ Journalism Must Report Facts — Not Just “Both Sides”

This is not about choosing sides. It’s about upholding the basic mission of journalism: to report facts as facts.

When the United Nations, Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Palestinian medical workers risk their lives to document war crimes, it is professionally and morally indefensible for SVT to act as if all “narratives” are equally uncertain or unreliable.

To make it seem like Palestinians may be bombing themselves, starving themselves, or flattening their own hospitals is not journalism.
It is complicity in the erasure of human suffering.

What’s at Stake

We are witnessing an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe:

Thousands of civilians, including children, killed.
Hospitals bombed. Aid blocked. Water and power cut off.
UN agencies calling the situation “catastrophic” and “unprecedented.”
And still — some of Sweden’s most trusted broadcasters are saying:

“We don’t really know what’s happening.”

This silence — this feigned confusion — disorients the public and hides documented atrocities behind a veil of false equivalence.  

By refusing to name what is verifiable, public broadcasters sow doubt where there should be outrage — and in doing so, they contribute to a culture where perpetrators feel emboldened to commit crimes without fear of consequences.

When the media retreats behind ambiguity, it doesn’t just fail the victims — it actively shields those who harm them.

If this were another war, in another place, with different victims, would this cautious detachment still apply?

We Demand Better from SVT & Sveriges Radio

We call on Sweden’s publicly funded media institutions to:

Acknowledge and correct the journalistic failure in this case.
Stop hiding behind false neutrality and clearly report verified facts — even when they are politically uncomfortable.
Empower reporters to speak truth without fear of accusations of “bias.”
Treat Palestinian lives and testimonies with the same journalistic validity as all others.

✊ What We Can Do Together

Sign this petition
Share it widely
Tag SVT (@svtnyheter) and Sveriges Radio (@sr_ekot) on social media
Write to their editorial boards
Demand accountability

Sweden deserves public broadcasters that serve truth — not power.
We must raise our voices for those being silenced, erased, and killed.

Truth matters. Lives depend on it.
Let’s demand better. Now.

Thank you so much for all your support! 

Link to SVT report: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/senaste-nytt-om-kriget-i-mellanostern (Senaste nytt om kriget i Gaza och Mellanöstern)