{"id":4588,"date":"2013-05-24T08:10:01","date_gmt":"2013-05-24T08:10:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=4588"},"modified":"2013-05-24T09:00:10","modified_gmt":"2013-05-24T09:00:10","slug":"they-dont-want-to-integrate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=4588","title":{"rendered":"Swedish race riots: ‘They don’t want to integrate’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Youth gang riots in the Swedish capital Stockholm have entered fifth straight night. Hundreds of mostly immigrant teenagers tore through the suburbs, smashing windows and burning cars in the country\u2019s worst outbreak of violence in years.<\/p>\n

At least six vehicles were torched throughout the city late on Thursday while the police called for reinforcements from other Swedish cities bracing for further unrest.<\/p>\n

Firefighters were putting out flames that engulfed several cars and a school in immigrant-dominated areas of Stockholm.<\/p>\n

The night before, the fire brigades were called to some 90 different blazes. On the fourth night of violence, youths torched over 30 cars in 15 neighborhoods along with a restaurant in Skogas, south of Stockholm. Three law enforcement officers were injured, police spokesperson Kjell Lindgren reported.<\/p>\n

Stockholm firefighters were busy throughout the night, saying they had \u201cnever before seen so many fires raging at the same time.\u201d Some 90 blazes were reported in total, most of them reportedly caused by the rioters. Still, the fourth night of violence was relatively quiet compared to the previous three, RT’s Peter Oliver reported from Stockholm.<\/p>\n

Leaders of immigrant communities were out on the streets in a bid to stop young people from rioting. Despite their efforts, as soon as the night fell, groups of arsonists took to the streets to set cars on fire. RT’s Peter Oliver witnessed rioters throwing stones at police and journalists alike.<\/p>\n

Civil disorder in Stockholm started on Sunday, when police shot and killed a 69-old-man in his apartment after he confronted officers with a machete; the unrest has since continued throughout week.<\/p>\n

Community leaders insist that a main reason for the violence is the high rate of unemployment in immigrant communities, particularly in the suburb of Husby near central Stockholm, one of the worst affected by the nighttime violence, Peter Oliver reported.<\/p>\n

Although Sweden\u2019s unemployment rate is below the EU average, joblessness among those under 25 has reached nearly 25 percent. The RT crew in Stockholm noted that a majority of those taking part in the violence are young.<\/p>\n

Parents of the rampaging teenagers and community religious leaders are now spending sleepless nights on the street in an effort to prevent their children from wreaking havoc.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt blamed the violence on \u201chooligans\u201d and said they did not represent the majority in the rioting neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s dangerous to draw a picture of Sweden with a capital separated from its suburbs. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s true. I think the dividing line runs straight through Husby, with a majority population and then a small group of troublemakers,\u201d Reinfeldt said.<\/p>\n

But the Husby youth taking part in riots told Reuters they are indeed divided from the rest of Stockholm, struggling to find a full-time job with their Husby address. Most of the interviewed rioters were reportedly unemployed.<\/p>\n

The claims of social exclusion in immigrant-dominated suburbs have been partly conceded by Sweden\u2019s Integration Minister Erik Ullenhag, who said the ministry is aware of \u201cdiscrimination in these areas.\u201d But the riots \u201cdon\u2019t improve the image of these areas, where there is a lot of positive stuff going on,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

For years, Sweden \u2013 one of Europe\u2019s most tranquil countries, famous for its attractive immigration policies and generous welfare system \u2013 has been accepting an influx of immigrants, which now make up about 15 per cent of its population. These migrants have failed to integrate into Swedish society, and are only in the country to enjoy the country\u2019s social benefits system, Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlqvist told RT.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is not from the Swedish government or from the Swedish people,\u201d the editor in chief of Dispatch International said. \u201cThe last 20 years or so, we have seen so many immigrants coming to Sweden that really don\u2019t like Sweden. They do not want to integrate, they do not want to live in [Swedish] society: Working, paying taxes and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people come here now because they know that Sweden will give them money for nothing. They don\u2019t have to work, they don\u2019t have to pay taxes \u2013 they can just stay here and get a lot of money. That is really a problem,\u201d Carlqvist added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe police could do so much, [instead] they have told the public that they mean to do as little as possible. But they could go there and use water cannons, they could not let people out onto the streets at night. There are so many things they could do within the law \u2013 but they don\u2019t do it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Young Muslims who enjoy tolerance, social institutions and welfare while living in Sweden nevertheless refuse to integrate into the West, Gerolf Annemans told RT. Annemans is the parliamentary leader of Vlaams Belang (\u2018Flemish Interest\u2019), a Belgian far-right nationalist political party.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [Muslim youths] have always sought excuse to show that they are not agreeing with the basic values of Western society,\u201d Annemans said, pointing to the recent cases of the Boston Marathon bombing in the US and yesterday\u2019s beheading of a British soldier in the UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always the same problem. There is a massive refusal by Muslim youngsters of the basics of Western society… \u00a0and they take any excuse whatsoever to show that with violence \u2013 that is where the problem is,\u201d he said. – RT<\/p>\n

\n
Firemen extinguish a burning car parked in an indoor garage in the Stockholm suburb of Tureberg after youths rioted in several different suburbs for a fourth consecutive night on May 24, 2013 (AFP Photo \/ Jonathan Nackstrand)The night before, the fire brigades were called to some 90 different blazes. On the fourth night of violence, youths torched over 30 cars in 15 neighborhoods along with a restaurant in Skogas, south of Stockholm. Three law enforcement officers were injured, police spokesperson Kjell Lindgren reportedStockholm firefighters were busy throughout the night, saying they had \u201cnever before seen so many fires raging at the same time.\u201d<\/em> Some 90 blazes were reported in total, most of them reportedly caused by the rioters. Still, the fourth night of violence was relatively quiet compared to the previous three, RT’s Peter Oliver reported from Stockholm.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Youth gang riots in the Swedish capital Stockholm have entered fifth straight night. Hundreds of mostly immigrant teenagers tore through the suburbs, smashing windows and burning cars in the country\u2019s worst outbreak of violence in years. At least six vehicles were torched throughout the city late on Thursday while the police called for reinforcements from … Continue reading “Swedish race riots: ‘They don’t want to integrate’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[2807,185],"class_list":["post-4588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-race-riots","tag-sweden"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/stockholmriots.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4588"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4591,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4588\/revisions\/4591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}