In the programme, whose name translates as Immigrants for Swedes, a play on the Swedish for Immigrants courses offered to new arrivals in the country, celebrity panelists representing a range of immigrant groups in Sweden are tasked with giving varying answers to questions from presenter Ahmed Berhan.

A group of ordinary Swedes then have to guess whether the panelists are lying or telling the truth. 

• INTERVIEW: ‘It’s a way to jokingly show that Sweden is very segregated’

In an episode on March 7th, contestants were asked to answer the question ‘which immigrant group were granted the most residence permits in Sweden in 2022?’

“It’s actually, unsurprisingly, people from Ukraine,” answered journalist and comedian Elaf Ali.

“That’s not true,” fellow contestant Thanos Fotas remarked.

To which Ali responded: “Maybe you don’t think about it that much because they’re light haired so they blend in,” before adding that “it’s maybe most obvious in, like, the brothels.”

Ukrainian Ambassador to Sweden, Andrii Plakhotniuk, reacted on social media site X saying that he was “deeply upset” by Ali’s joke. He demanded that she apologise and that and public broadcaster SVT, who broadcast the programme,”takes the necessary measures to prevent similar situations in the future”.

“I consider such statements deeply offensive and completely unacceptable, given the circumstances of the full-scale Russian military aggression against Ukraine, which forced Ukrainian women to flee abroad to save their lives and the lives of their children,” Plakhotniuk wrote.

Ali addressed the criticism in a post on X.

“In the season premiere of IFS, which was broadcast last week, I made jokes about an imam, Somalians and about the tragedies of war (Ukraine) – women who are forced into prostitution,” she wrote, adding that the Ukrainians were “super angry” and had been “bombarding” her on social media. 

“So many harsher things have been said, but the idea that a group of people should be immune from having jokes made about them is crazy. And no one seems to care about using their brain to think a step further. Why are women ending up in this position? Who is buying services from these women?” Ali added in a comment under her post on X.

In a comment to Aftonbladet, the broadcaster’s head of programming, Christina Hill ruled out the possibility of SVT issuing a formal apology.

“IFS is a programme with a clear premise: making jokes about stereotypes surrounding ethnicity and culture, often at the boundary of what’s considered socially acceptable. I think it’s clear that the comment is meant as a joke and believe that our audience understands this,” Hill said.

“It is of course not relevant for SVT to take any measures in response to this, as the content of the programme is covered by Swedish freedom of speech,” she added.