Swedish museum hit by flap over 'racist' cake

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STOCKHOLM, Sweden, April 18 (UPI) -- A Swedish museum caught in a firestorm over a cake in the shape of a naked black woman was evacuated because of a bomb threat.

The threat was called in to the Moderna Museet in Stockholm at 4 p.m. Tuesday, just after Queen Silvia of Sweden and Jenni Haukio, wife of Finland's prime minister, has left the museum, The Local reported. No bomb was found.

"The person who rang spoke English and said that there was a bomb and that it wasn't a joke. He said the museum was a racist one," Lotta Guffhe, a spokeswoman for the Stockholm police, told the newspaper Aftonbladet.

Artist Makode Aj Linde, who made the cake for World Art Day last Sunday, said it was a commentary on female genital mutilation, which is practiced in some African countries. The body of the cake was a violent red color while it was iced to look like an African woman.

But the National Afro-Swedish Association said news pictures of Culture Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth cutting the cake looked like she was at a party. The group said pictures of Linde, who screamed every time someone cut the cake, with his arms, covered in black makeup, sticking out of the cake, showed a "racist spectacle."

"In our view, this simply adds to the mockery of racism in Sweden," Kitimbwa Sabuni, a spokesman, told The Local.