Swedish Hate Crime & Twisted Statistics

An article this week in the Local reported on increasing rates of hate crime in Sweden. Citing a confusing number of statistics and studies, the article attempted to compare rising rates of anti-Semitic hate crimes with one of European liberals’ major concerns, Islamophobia.   According to the article, one might infer that these two issues are problems created by European xenophobia. Furthermore, one might also assume that these are the only minority groups in Sweden, which is untrue.

The article also completely failed to point out that most physical anti-Semitic hate crime in Sweden is perpetrated by Muslims. Readers of this blog will also recall that the Swedish authorities, especially Malmö’s mayor and government-supported media (Aftonbladet is a prime example) have repeatedly stirred up hostilities against the Jewish population. Remarks made by Mayor Ilmar Reepalu can be described—at best—as examples of bigotry, and have often crossed the line into verbal hate crime. In Sweden, the left-leaning media’s reporting on Israel is notoriously biased.  Swedish Jews in general are often demonized along with the Israeli government.

As the article notes, hate crime statistics are underreported in Sweden. In Malmö the police are reluctant to investigate or record anti-Semitic attacks, as the Chabad rabbi in Malmö has attested.

When numbers of Muslims are guilty of hate crimes, placing anti-Semitism and Islamophobia on equal footing smacks of the kind of whitewashing and denial common in Sweden. A simple comparison of the reported numbers of hate crime incidents shows that Jews are more than ten times more likely than Muslims to suffer from hate crimes.

Although Sweden would like to portray itself as an open and fair society, its integration policies can be described as abject failures, since many Muslim immigrants barely speak Swedish, have high drop-out rates from school, 80% unemployment, and live in poverty on government handouts.

No wonder the most telling statistic in the article reads as follows:

-“When American research centre Pew recently investigated the development of religious conflicts and oppression worldwide between 2006 and 2009, Sweden distinguished itself as a country where hostilities related to religion are increasing the most.”

Swedish intolerance isn’t defined merely by the number of hate sites on the Internet. It’s about public officials and journalists who are not held accountable for slurs and blood libels, and police failure to pursue those guilty of hate crimes. Warehousing immigrants in slums where they have no hope of integrating into Western society, and are encouraged in their prejudices only adds violent actors to stage already set for intolerance.

By Chanah Shapira