Lars Vilks’ first talk since Copenhagen cancelled

From the Swedish edition of The Local

The controversial Swedish artist who was the presumed target of one of the Copenhagen terror attacks last month was set to make his first public appearance on Friday. But the talk has been cancelled over security concerns.

Lars Vilks was due to speak at a panel discussion on free speech in Gothenburg on Thursday. The event was initially postponed by a day following concerns about the security of teachers taking part in a union conference in the same building and later cancelled altogether.But Friday’s talk ended up being cancelled late on Wednesday afternoon after it emerged it would clash with a lecture being hosted by an art school, which rents rooms in the same venue. 

“It’s very unfortunate. But we felt it would not work. Our tenants should not be hit with problems caused by this booking,” the CEO of the Folkets hus (The People’s House) venue, Lina Lindquist, said about the Vilks talk.

The debate was supposed to have featured members of Sweden’s Pirate Party’s youth organisation alongside free speech campaigner and blogger Sakine Madon.

Last week it emerged that a separate planned lecture by the artist at Karlstad University on March 17th had already been scrapped by organisers. Staff said they could not guarantee the safety of the audience in the wake of the recent shootings in Denmark and France.

“We have done a security check and decided that it is too high a risk to have this arrangement in our building,” Jan Ganbreng, head of security for the university told The Local at the time.

This week it emerged that artist was set to pick up the award from the Danish Free Press Society (Trykkefrihedsselskabet) that he was scheduled to get on the night the terror attacks took place in Copenhagen in a ceremony on March 14th. He will return to the Danish capital to collect the honour at a ceremony in Christiansborg in the city.