Parliamentary complaint over birthday party

A heated debate is raging in Sweden after an eight-year-old boy's failure to invite two classmates to his birthday party resulted in a complaint filed with parliament.

Nearly 200 outraged comments have been posted on the website of the local southern Swedish daily Sydsvenskan, just days after the paper reported on the unlikely string of events that followed a young boy's decision to invite all of his classmates to his birthday party except two.

The policy at the boy's school in the southern town of Lund was that all children (or all the boys or all the girls) had to be invited to parties when their invitations were handed out in class.

When a teacher noticed that two children had been left out of a party list, she promptly confiscated all the invitations, according to Sydsvenskan.

The school principal said that the ones who were not invited felt sad and left out.

The boy's father meanwhile decided to file a complaint with the Swedish parliamentary ombudsman, insisting his son's rights had been trampled on.

He told the paper that the two boys in question should not have been surprised that they had not made the guest list.

He claimed that one of them did not invite his son to his birthday and the other has bullied his son for six months.

He said: 'You don't invite your antagonists to a birthday party,' adding that he had not been aware of the school policy.

He said that his son feels terrible about the situation as no one has the right to confiscate anyone's property in this way.

He added that it is just like stealing mail.

The parliamentary ombudsman is scheduled to rule in the case on 8 September.