Cars, schools torched in fifth night of Stockholm riots
© afp Cars, schools and a police station were torched Friday after a fifth night of riots in Stockholm's immigrant-majority suburbs following the fatal police shooting on Sunday of a 69-year-old wielding a machete. By News Wires (text) At least nine cars were torched and two schools and a police station were set ablaze as riots swept through Stockholm's immigrant-dominated suburbs early Friday for the fifth straight night, police and firefighters said.

The riots, which have shattered Sweden's image abroad as a peaceful and egalitarian nation, have sparked a debate about the assimilation of immigrants, who make up about 15 percent of the population.

Many of the immigrants who have arrived due to the country's generous refugee policy struggle to learn the language and find employment, despite numerous government programmes.

'The riots took a lot of Swedes by surprise.'


Early Friday, police told Swedish news agency TT eight people had been arrested so far for the night's rioting, but no injuries were reported.

In Rinkeby, one of the city's immigrant-dominated areas, firefighters rushed to put out flames that engulfed six cars parked alongside each other. Five cars were totally gutted, and one sustained more moderate damage, according to an AFP photographer on the scene.

Three more cars were torched in the Norsborg suburb, and a police station in Aelvsjoe was set on fire but quickly extinguished, police said.

Firefighters meanwhile said a school in another immigrant-heavy suburb, Tensta, was set ablaze but quickly extinguished, and a nursery school in the Kista suburb was also on fire.

And police in Soedertaelje, a town south of Stockholm, said rioters threw stones at them as they responded to reports of cars set alight.

The previous night, the fire brigade had been called to some 90 different blazes, most of them caused by rioters.

"We are gradually becoming more like other countries," said Aje Carlbom, a social anthropologist at Malmoe University.

The troubles, which began Sunday in the Husby suburb, are believed to have been triggered by the fatal police shooting of a 69-year-old Husby resident last week after the man wielded a machete in public.

The man had fled to his apartment, where police have said they tried to mediate but ended up shooting him dead in what they claimed was self-defence.

Local activists said the shooting sparked anger among youths who claim to have suffered from police brutality. During the first night of rioting, they said police had called them "tramps, monkeys and negroes."

Police meanwhile downplayed the scale of the events.

"Every injured person is a tragedy, every torched car is a failure for society... but Stockholm is not burning. Let's have a level-headed view of the situation," Ulf Johansson, deputy police chief for Stockholm county, said Thursday.

Residents of areas largely populated by immigrants are suffering from segregation, anthropologist Carlbom told AFP.

"Living as a young person in these segregated areas can be very hard in many ways. You have virtually no contact with other Swedes and a lot of times I don't think you have a good understanding of Swedish society," he said.

For example, some 80 percent of the 12,000 residents in Husby are immigrants.

Due to its liberal immigration policy, Sweden has in recent decades become one of Europe's top destinations for immigrants, both in absolute numbers and relative to its size.

In the past decade it has welcomed hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia and the Balkans, among others.

This is not the first time the Scandinavian country has seen riots among immigrants.

In 2010, up to 100 youths threw bricks, set fires and attacked the local police station in the immigrant-dominated suburb of Rinkeby for two nights.

And in 2008, hundreds of youths rioted against police in the southern Swedish town of Malmoe, sparked by the closure of an Islamic cultural centre in the suburb of Rosengaard that housed a mosque.

Integration Minister Erik Ullenhag attributed the violence to high unemployment and social exclusion in Sweden's immigrant-dominated areas.

"We know that there is discrimination in these areas, and these events don't improve the image of these areas, where there is a lot of positive stuff going on but which is totally eclipsed right now," he told TT.

In Husby, overall unemployment was 8.8 percent in 2012, compared to 3.3 percent in Stockholm as a whole, according to official data.

And a total of 12 percent in Husby received social benefits last year, compared to 3.6 percent in Stockholm as a whole.

The riots have received international media attention, with some comparisons being drawn to similar problems assimilating immigrants in other European countries such as Britain and France.

(AFP)

 Super Ready wrote:
This saddens me. Sweden has for a long time been a world leader in generally keeping its citizens happy and rather than locking out the rest of the world, they have welcomed immigrants in. And when the immigrants find that things aren't immediately fluffy bunnies and sunshine (welcome to real life), this is how they repay the country...? I'd be tempted to throw them out.

 Super Ready wrote:
This saddens me. Sweden has for a long time been a world leader in generally keeping its citizens happy and rather than locking out the rest of the world, they have welcomed immigrants in. And when the immigrants find that things aren't immediately fluffy bunnies and sunshine (welcome to real life), this is how they repay the country...? I'd be tempted to throw them out.

The BBC wrote:Groups of rioters, as small as five people and as large as 100, have been seen this week, Mr Lindgren (Stockholm police spokesman) said.

The BBC wrote:Stockholm police spokesman Kjell Lindgren said the rioters were a "mixture of every kind of people".

The BBC wrote:The Stockholm police spokesman said rioting had occurred in both deprived parts of the city and parts that would be considered "normal".

"My colleagues say the people on the streets are a mixture of every kind of people you can think of," he added.

"We have got Swedes, we have got very young people, we have got people aged 30 to 35. You can't define them as a group.

"We don't know why they are doing this. There is no answer to it."

 Super Ready wrote:
Hrm... interesting. I'll confess to having missed those points. I'd be intrigued to know if the Swedish amongst the rioters are acting because they're affected, or sympathisers, or perhaps both.

pgmason wrote:
Could be akin to the London riots last year - a lot of people got involved simply because they were there, and the inciting incident (also a police shooting) really had nothing much to do with it.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
The Swedish immigrant problem is Islamic.

Despite the original article's dogged unwillingness to use the 'm' word, it is muslims who are rioting in the streets of Sweden, just as they have targeted and attacked the Swedish Jewish community and attacked them in increasing level of aggression and persecution over the past 10 years.

Multiculturalism is a great thing, until you encounter the culture that is dedicated to destroying multiculturalism and stamping it's own dogma on the world, assimilating everyone to it's way and destroying art, learning and equality.

.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

pgmason wrote:
Could be akin to the London riots last year - a lot of people got involved simply because they were there, and the inciting incident (also a police shooting) really had nothing much to do with it.

This is pretty much the case. It started off as a reaction to the police shooting, but the spread of the riots outside Husby is pretty much random tossers who're using this as a pretext to riot.

Relapse wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

pgmason wrote:
Could be akin to the London riots last year - a lot of people got involved simply because they were there, and the inciting incident (also a police shooting) really had nothing much to do with it.

This is pretty much the case. It started off as a reaction to the police shooting, but the spread of the riots outside Husby is pretty much random tossers who're using this as a pretext to riot.

That's pretty much my guess, also. I havn't read or seen anything that says it's Muslims who are rioting.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Multiculturalism is a great thing, until you encounter the culture that is dedicated to destroying multiculturalism and stamping it's own dogma on the world, assimilating everyone to it's way and destroying art, learning and equality.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Multiculturalism is a great thing, until you encounter the culture that is dedicated to destroying multiculturalism and stamping it's own dogma on the world, assimilating everyone to it's way and destroying art, learning and equality.

My own personal view as an immigrant is that when moving to a different country, with it's own culture, it is important to assimilate into the local customs and practices. That does not mean giving up your identity, but it does mean showing that you want to be part of the country that you moved to. To stand apart from others, demand separate treatment, and that you be allowed to ignore local laws and customs in favour of your own does not make a community stronger. It divides it.

 Frazzled wrote:
*By get out I mean enjoy the awesomeness that is Memorial Day. Frazzled is going to his first statewide IDPA competition. Wee ha!

 Frazzled wrote:
Wait you're against the Second Amendment though

Mr Hyena wrote:Any reasonable nation would severely punish the rioters for disobedience.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Wait you're against the Second Amendment though

Never have been against it Frazzled, I'm just, like most folks, in favor of limiting the types of weapon available. I do have something of a thing for the colt anaconda and have wanted one since I was a teen. In fact, wife and I had a 'warm' discussion about guns in the house just last night, I want a home defense handgun, a pumpaction and a couple of decent rifles, one for small game and one for deer.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
*By get out I mean enjoy the awesomeness that is Memorial Day. Frazzled is going to his first statewide IDPA competition. Wee ha!

That's right, I get to enjoy my first Memorial Day weekend.... by cleaning the pool, yardwork, and training for a job I start on Tuesday

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Wait you're against the Second Amendment though

Never have been against it Frazzled, I'm just, like most folks, in favor of limiting the types of weapon available. I do have something of a thing for the colt anaconda and have wanted one since I was a teen. In fact, wife and I had a 'warm' discussion about guns in the house just last night, I want a home defense handgun, a pumpaction and a couple of decent rifles, one for small game and one for deer.

 whembly wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Wait you're against the Second Amendment though

Never have been against it Frazzled, I'm just, like most folks, in favor of limiting the types of weapon available. I do have something of a thing for the colt anaconda and have wanted one since I was a teen. In fact, wife and I had a 'warm' discussion about guns in the house just last night, I want a home defense handgun, a pumpaction and a couple of decent rifles, one for small game and one for deer.

We're slowly corrupting you MGS!

 Frazzled wrote:
You have a new job? This weekend is truly a good weekend.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
You have corrupted me to hibachi though, and my wife's chicken and dumplings, Pennsylvania Dutch style... And cooking with a proper grill outside, instead of the terrible little efforts the Brits call BBQs, I got me a propane burning muthalover with enough room in it to store a whole cape buffalo, a chicken rotisserie and a couple of hot plates.

 Orlanth wrote:
Sweden today, England tomorrow.

At least in Sweden the cause will be publishable, they zre not as heavily dogmatised as the UK. When it happens in England it will be 100% the fault of the 'far right' because we don't bend over backwards enough.

 strybjorn Grimskull wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Sweden today, England tomorrow.

At least in Sweden the cause will be publishable, they zre not as heavily dogmatised as the UK. When it happens in England it will be 100% the fault of the 'far right' because we don't bend over backwards enough.

I'm sorry, but may i ask how you came to the conclusion that immigrants rioting would be linked to the far-right, there the one group that it wouldn't be linked to.