Hundreds youths hurling rocks, burning cars and smashing windows for the second day in a row in Stockholm say they are protesting against police brutality and inequality. In Sweden, critics of the multiculturalism policies lash out at immigration laws.
Seven policemen were injured, at least ten cars and countless
containers set on fire, and dozens of windows smashed in several
heavily immigrant-populated neighborhoods of the Swedish capital on
Tuesday.
The police said some 300 people are now taking part in riots,
which started in protest against the shooting of a man allegedly
armed with a knife in the Stockholm district of Husby. The
protesters also cited beatings and ‘discriminative’ derogatory
remarks of the officers.
The protester are mainly young, the police said. Of the seven
rioters arrested on Tuesday only four were detained, two of them
later released, and one turned out to be underage.
All of the men arrested on suspicion of violent rioting and
assaulting a public official were aged between 15 and 19, the
police said.
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt on Tuesday commented on
the matter, urging a halt to the violence, but acknowledged in the
short term that may be unlikely.
“We have groups of young men who think that that they can and
should change society with violence. Let’s be clear: This is not
okay. We cannot be ruled by violence,” Reinfeldt said as cited
by the Local.
He also urged “everyone, including parents and adults” to
help restore calm.
“Husby residents must get their neighborhood back,”
Reinfeldt stressed, speaking of the district, where around 80
percent of about 11,000 residents are first- or second-generation
immigrants. This particular district has seen employment increasing
and crime falling in the last seven years, Reinfeldt added,
speaking of the “right direction” it has been going.
But not everyone agreed with Reinfeldt’s assessment of
immigrant-populated Swedish districts development, with critics
saying the integration policies of the country — and that of the
whole of Western Europe — are “not working.”
“This is a clear consequence of this multiculturalism
politics that Sweden adopted around ‘80s and increased in the
‘90s… And this is not a unique one single occasion… we have had
these ethnic-based riots against Swedish authorities. We have seen
this in Western Europe, that is very sad, and I think we will see
more of this, if we don’t change the politics,” the chairman of
the Sweden’s National Democrats Party Marc Abramsson told RT.
While not elaborating on the incident that caused the current
riots, Abramsson said all such incidents have a common “problem
beneath” — that is, the immigrants not identifying themselves
with the country’s society, nor accepting the country’s
authorities, sticking only to their own ethnic group.
“Sweden has been trying harder than any of the countries in
Europe to try to push for integration. We have invested virtually
billions from taxpayers’ money into it, we have tried everything
that the scientists have presented — and still it’s not
working,” the politician argued.
“They live in their area, and they feel the area is their
own. And when the police arrive, they feel they are you intruding
into their, sort of, ‘country.’ The police… who work in these
areas, there have to be in two cars, one protecting the other.
People are trying to maintain buildings, to have security guards,
the fire department can’t work, they get attacked by angry
immigrant youth that feel like they’re intruding into their own
area, even though they’re trying to help,” Abramsson went on to
say.
This article originally appeared on : RT