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The United States has designated the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) and three of its leaders as terrorists, citing their history of violence and their openly racist, anti-immigrant, antisemitic, and anti-LGBTQI+ platform. The NRM, also known as PVL in Finland, is a banned neo-Nazi group that is active in all five Nordic countries. The US State Department named the NRM and three of its leaders as 'specially designated global terrorists'. The group's violent activities are based on its openly racist, anti-immigrant, antisemitic, and anti-LGBTQI+ platform [867f21c6].
The US sanctions freeze any of the group's US assets and generally bars Americans from dealing with it. The designation means that any US-based assets of the group and its leaders will be frozen, and they will be blocked from using the US financial system. The sanctions aim to disrupt the NRM's activities and limit its access to financial resources [70f255b0] [0da2172c] [98136ff2].
Sweden plans to raise the issue at the EU level. The NRM, which is the largest neo-Nazi group in Sweden with branches in Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland, has been banned in Finland since 2020. Finland's Supreme Court ordered the PVL to be abolished in 2020, declaring that the organization's goal was a state order similar to Nazi Germany's National Socialism. Several Finnish politicians, including Vilhelm Junnila of the nationalist Finns Party, have faced criticism for alleged links to neo-Nazi and far-right groups [867f21c6].
The US government's actions against the NRM highlight the global concern over the rise of white supremacist ideologies and the need to address them through legal and diplomatic means. These measures demonstrate a commitment to combating extremism and promoting human rights and equality [0da2172c] [00afa2f9] [98136ff2].