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Swedish Twitter project goes awry with Jewish comments

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A project that gives ordinary people control of a Twitter account representing Sweden has erupted in controversy after this week's curator let loose a stream of posts that could be seen as offensive to Jews.

Sonja "Hitler" Abrahamsson, as she refers to herself, was put in charge of the @Sweden account on Monday in the latest stage of the Swedish Institute's Curators of Sweden project.

Since taking charge of the account, the 27-year-old has posted tweets including: "Whats the fuzz with jews. You can't even see if a person is a jew, unless you see their penises, and even if you do, you can't be sure!?"

Anoyher post sent to her 32,000 followers read: "In nazi German they even had to sew stars on their sleeves. If they didn't, they could never now who was a jew and who was not a jew."

She also queried: "Where I come from there is no jews. I guess its a religion. But why were the nazis talking about races? Was it a blood-thing (for them)?"

The head of the Stockholm Jewish community told The Local that Ms Abrahamsson's comments were not the way to be an ambassador for the country. "They really should do a quality check on these people beforehand," said Lena Posner-Körösi.

"Sonja's tweets may be seen by some as controversial," admitted Sergio Guimaraes, the media relations manager for the Swedish Institute.

"Nowhere in her tweets has she said anything antisemitic. The whole point of the account is to show a varied picture of Swedish society."

"I'm sorry if some of you find the question offensive. Thats was not my purpose. I just don't get why some people hates jews so much," posted Ms Abrahamsson after receiving shocked and critical responses to her tweets.

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