The Swedish-based file-sharing site the Pirate Bay has admitted links to the extremist anti-immigrant Sweden Democrat party.

The admission came on the talk show “Bert”, hosted by record industry mogul Bert Karlsson, no friend of free downloading. Carlsson was also co-founder of the New Democrat right wing populist anti-immigrant political party, which was briefly in the Swedish parliament in the 1990’s before self-destructing. From Digg:

A spokesman for the Swedish torrent tracker The Pirate Bay, has admitted on Swedish tv that their servers and broadband bandwidth were financed by Carl Lundström, one of the alleged sponsors of Swedish far-right political party Sweden Democrats……

read more | digg story

A couple of days ago the Sweden Democrats proposed a series of measures against immigrants, from abolishing permanent residence permits and lengthening to period to qualify for Swedish citizenship to ten years to outlawing the construction of mosques and any other buildings with “non-Swedish styles”.

From the Pirate Bay blog:

On politics

People are always trying to figure out our political point of view. One moment we’re getting called left-winged and the next right-winged, then left-winged again, right-winged again… It’s funny to see that we actually matter that much to people.

Truth to be told - it’s hard to say what WE are, since WE are not just one guy. We are lots of people. Some people vote left, some people vote right. Most of us probably don’t vote at all. Some people care, others don’t. And nothing has anything to do with The Pirate Bay.

From time to time we have political discussions within the group (not often, mostly we talk about beer, girls and cool new hardware)… we don’t always agree on stuff. Not politics, beer, girls nor which is the coolest hardware. None of us though are in any way extreme in our political views.

The Pirate Bay itself has one political opinion - share your files, your culture. It’s about technology that gives you your freedom.