Swedish Police List Palestinian Flag As "Terror Symbol"

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The Palestinian flag: a symbol of terror? Swedish police were helping a high school in their country to raise awareness about terror groups after a string of students had left to fight with ISIS, according to reports.

The police gave the school “internal material” to help them recognize terror groups. However, the material included the Palestinian flag.

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According to TheLocal.se:

One local high school enlisted the help of the Örebro police, which shared its internal material about recognizing terror groups. Among the documents was a page with flags of known terror groups – one of which was the Palestinian flag.

“The exact same symbol is used by the Abu Nidal Organization,” Jonas Hysing, head of the police’s tactical unit, told the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper.

“It’s not unheard of that organizations do this – Muhammad’s creed is on the Isis flag, for example, and that has nothing to do with terrorism.”

He said that the police documents weren’t inaccurate, and had been based on information from the National Counterterrorism Center in the US.

Local Green Party politician Niclas Persson said the fact that the listing was “truly unfortunate”.

“It’s important that this is corrected,” he told the TT news agency. “The big problem is that people connect Palestine’s fight for liberty with terrorism.”

Despite the confusion, policeman Jonas Hysing said that the symbol wouldn’t be removed, adding that officials may write extra text beside the symbol to explain that it can often be used in different contexts.

We want to know what you think about the inclusion of the Palestinian Flag in the “known terror symbols” internal documents of Swedish law enforcement. Let us know in the comments below!