Sabaton could lose their Swedish Skeptics’ Association’s Award

Just yesterday (Tuesday), the Swedish Skeptics’ Association [“Föreningen Vetenskap och Folkbildning”] announced that their award for “Enlightener Of The Year 2022” [“Årets folkbildare 2022”] would go to the Swedish hard rock band Sabaton. According to Sweden’s national public broadcaster SVT, shortly afterwards, the association became aware of a statement of one band member in 2016, which could now cost the band the award. The statement is about Russia’s annexation of Crimea. After the band had played a controversial concert on the Crimean peninsula, Sabaton bassist Pär Sundström said a year later, in 2016, in an interview with Sweden Rock Magazine that Crimea was occupied before 2014:

“If you go to Sevastopol, you hardly feel that they feel occupied. Quite the opposite.”

– Pär Sundström

According to Pär Sundström, if one were not there, one might be “tricked” into believing otherwise. In the interview in 2016, he went on to say that “all these years”, the people in Sevastopol “felt like Russians” but were “on the wrong side when the border between the Soviet Union and Ukraine was drawn”.

The Swedish Skeptics’ Association told SVT that they were not aware of Pär Sundström’s statement when they awarded the “Enlightener Of The Year 2022” prize to Sabaton. Latest today (Wednesday), the association’s board will gather to decide on the new information, and whether Sabaton can keep the award or not.