Kent Ekeroth

Kent Ekeroth
Ekeroth in 2014
Member of the Swedish parliament for
Incumbent
Assumed office 4 October 2010
Personal details
Born	Kent Alexander Ekeroth (1981-09-11) 11 September 1981 (age 35)
Political party	Sweden Democrats
Alma mater	Lund University
Profession	Economist

Kent Alexander Ekeroth (born 11 September 1981) is a Swedish-Kazakh politician of the Sweden Democrats. He has been the member of the Riksdag since 4 October 2010 (elected in the 2010 general election), representing the constituency. In parliament, he has been a member of the Committee on Justice and a deputy member of Committee on European Union Affairs. Ekeroth has studied economics. He joined the Sweden Democrats in 2006. Since 2007, he is the party's secretary for international affairs. In October 2006, Ekeroth was fired from his internship at the Swedish embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, after the embassy had found out about his involvement with the Sweden Democrats. The embassy's actions were later criticised by the Swedish Chancellor of Justice, Göran Lambertz, who ruled that the firing was illegal and a breach of the Swedish constitutional laws. The Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, who are responsible for all Swedish embassies abroad, also had to pay damages to Ekeroth. Ekeroth is a board member of the pan-European eurosceptic European Alliance for Freedom.

In November 2012, Ekeroth took a break from his duties after the leakage of a video filmed with his mobile phone from an event which became known as Järnrörsskandalen ("Iron bar scandal").Erik Almqvist had two years earlier published an edited version of the video to show how he and his party colleagues Ekeroth and Christian Westling had been verbally abused that evening. The film released in November 2012 by Expressen showed Ekeroth and his colleagues arming themselves with iron bars after arguing with a drunken man. Ekeroth argued with a young woman, whom he allegedly pushed against a car, while he can be heard telling her: "Back off! Back off!". Almqvist used racist and sexist remarks without Ekeroth reacting against it. The police came to the place and the drunken man said that he saw Ekeroth pushing the woman. Ekeroth and his colleagues had returned when they heard the sirens and said to the police that they had been threatened by the man. While Erik Almqvist was forced to resign, Ekeroth remained in the parliament. Social democrat and chairman of the Committee on Justice Morgan Johansson was quoted as saying "I wonder what his constituents will think of him being in the Riksdag and getting paid without any real duties".