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Monday, January 26, 2015

Sweden: In Skåne, 137 complaints of antisemitic attacks, 0 indictments


Talk about burying the lede.  The Local in Sweden published an article about police not charging antisemitic criminals under the headline "Spotlight on hate crimes in Sweden’s Skåne".
Police in Skåne in southern Sweden have recorded 137 anti-semitic hate crimes in the past two years, according to an investigation by Swedish broadcaster SVT.

The review of police work in the region reveals crimes ranging from offensive swastika doodles to threats, harassment and in some cases violence.

Between 2013 and 2014, more than half of hate crimes in Skåne’s biggest city, Malmö, were directed against individual Jews.

But SVT suggests that too few suspects have been prosecuted for the anti-Semitic discrimination.

(...)

Thomas Bull, who coordinates Malmö police’s hate crime unit admitted to SVT that he was not aware of any cases of verbal threats leading to prosecution in Skåne.

“Not for anti-Semitic crimes,” he said.

What does "too few suspects" mean?

Well, if you check out what SVT have to say: it means "none".   That's right, in Skåne and in Malmo, there have been 137 cases of Jews lodging complaints about antisemitic harassment and vandalism, and the total number of persecutions and convictions is: zero.

Don't you think that little point should actually make headlines in Sweden?   But even SVT did not think such a triviality deserves to be mentioned in the headline.

According to SVT, even when the police think there's a case, it's not enough.  In one case, police managed to collect 13 complaints against the same offender who harassed the staff of the Jewish community, but the court decided to drop the case, since it wasn't possible to prove guilt.

Police had license plates in 8 cases of people shouting antisemitic taunts at Jews.  But interrogated only three of the car-owners.  And even then, nothing came out of it.  The car-owners claimed they weren't driving the car, and Thomas Bull explains that in criminal cases, they don't proceed if the car is used by several people [Swedish criminals, pay attention!!].

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