20+ girls molested in Cologne-style attacks at Swedish rock fest

[AntiBank]

80. Swedish Feminists Thread Needle Between Sexism and Racism in Migrant Controversy

http://time.com/4182186/sweden-feminists-sexual-assault-refugees/

A scandal over alleged sexual assaults by migrants puts Sweden—renowned for its gender equality and its liberality—in a difficult place Even as Germany has grappled with a scandal over alleged sexual assaults involving migrants, Sweden has been embroiled in its own sexual assault controversy.

It erupted on Jan. 11 after the liberal newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported leaked police memos indicating that Swedish police had covered up reports of groping and the sexual harassment of young girls at a Swedish music festival last summer by refugee youths. The story implied that the police covered-up the reports in order to avoid anti-immigrant sentiment.

Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven called the alleged cover-up a “double betrayal.” Björn Söder, an MP from the Sweden Democrats, a right-wing and anti-migrant party, called it “a scandal without equal”—though later in the week, a special prosecutor in Sweden announced that there would be no formal investigation because there was no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing by the police. Though the facts of what actually happened at the festival remain unclear, the controversy has raised questions in Sweden about whether the Scandinavian country’s liberal political values had stifled a more honest discussion about how to integrate migrants from the Islamic world who might not share those values—even as the response of right-wingers fed accusations of racism.

It is not the first time that Sweden has had to deal with the uncomfortable intersection of racism and sexual assault against women. After sexual assault allegations were made against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in Sweden in 2012, the country faced scrutiny over statistics that suggested it had one of the highest rape rates in the world. Right-wing organizations, such as the Gastestone Institute, have used this data as an indication of risk migrants pose to women. But Sweden’s National Council for Crime Prevention cautions against comparing crime data across countries, and attributes Sweden’s statistics to high rates of reporting rape, and a broadening of the definition of rape in 2005.


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intersectionality at one of it's most tricky points for people who are wedded to the "all immigrants are absolutely equal and never really bad and we need to let millions in if necessary" meme