Small-Town
Sweden Chafes at Migrant Influx
Government’s
welcoming refugee policy runs into anti-foreigner sentiment in rural
areas
By ANNA MOLIN
Updated Oct. 20,
2015 9:36 p.m. ET
VOLLSJO, Sweden—When
Johnny Palm heard that developers wanted to turn a former hotel into
a shelter for asylum-seekers, many likely Muslims from the Middle
East, he immediately added his name to a protest list.
“The village can’t
handle it,” the 42-year-old plumber said, crossing his tattooed
arms. “Why don’t they go to Saudi Arabia instead where they share
the same religion and speak the same language?”
Sweden has granted
asylum to nearly 50,000 people since the start of the year, taking in
more refugees per capita than any other European country. Even as the
European Union argues over how to handle the biggest influx since
World War II, Social Democrat Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has vowed
to keep Sweden’s doors open. “My Europe doesn’t build walls,”
he said at a recent rally in Stockholm.
But Mr. Lofven’s
welcoming stance is increasingly being challenged as the river of
people from Syria, Iraq and beyond reshapes the political landscape
in Sweden and across the Nordic region.
The anti-immigration
Sweden Democrats—long a fringe movement with neo-Nazi roots—has
become the country’s third-largest political force. Recent surveys
show about 20% of Swedes now support the party, up from 13% in last
year’s general election and less than 6% in 2010.
In Norway and
Finland, populist parties have joined ruling coalitions. In Denmark,
Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen governs with support from the
anti-immigration People’s Party, which agreed to back him only
after he promised to tighten borders.
In Sweden,
anti-immigrant sentiment is heard loudly in small towns and rural
areas, where many of the homes for new arrivals awaiting a decision
on their asylum application are set up. This summer, several shelters
were targeted in arson attacks, including with Molotov cocktails. No
arrests have been made.
Last month, police
found flammable liquid outside a home 80 miles west of Stockholm.
Police say someone may have intended to try to avenge two people who
were killed at a nearby IKEA store in August, allegedly by one of the
shelter’s residents.
Mr. Lofven is facing
local resistance to his plan for all municipalities to share the
load. Some mayors from his own party have started to question the
open-arms policy.
“Before Sweden
takes in more, other countries have to do their part,” said Goran
Dahlstrom, a Social Democrat and the mayor of Katrineholm in central
Sweden.
In Vollsjo, a
village of 900 people that gave its name to the soft-leather Vollsjo
clogs, plans to convert the Hotel Svea (short for Sweden) into a
shelter sparked a petition drive against it, punctuated by xenophobic
diatribes online.
Such opposition
isn’t new: In 1988, after thousands of refugees fled the Iran-Iraq
war to Sweden, two-thirds of voters in Sjobo, the broader
municipality that includes Vollsjo, voted against accepting any.
Still, in 2001 the
municipality, with 18,000 residents, sidestepped the non-binding vote
and agreed to accept 25 refugees a year. In addition, Sjobo has
opened two shelters since 2014 to house around 30 so-called
unaccompanied minors—young asylum-seekers without parents or
guardians.
“I think that’s
enough,” Mr. Palm said.
Feeding the public
frustration, some mainstream politicians have tiptoed around the
issue, saying it is out of their purview.
Vollsjo Mayor Thomas
Quist argued the shelter proposal wasn’t his to deal with. “This
came in as a building matter, it’s completely apolitical,” he
said.
Last year, as the
number of arrivals began to surge again, the Sweden Democrats emerged
as the second-biggest party in Sjobo with nearly 21% of the votes in
a municipal election, more than doubling their 2010 result.
Real-estate
developer Hans Palm, who also works as a lawyer in Gothenburg, was
undaunted. His latest plan for Hotel Svea calls for housing 25 minors
as well as providing meals, computers, table tennis and even an
indoor pool. Many are likely to come from Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan
and Somalia.
Such projects are
mushrooming across Sweden because the migration agency is desperate
for rooms to lodge asylum seekers due to a housing shortage in
Stockholm and other large cities.
Mr. Palm the
plumber, who isn’t related to the developer, set out to stop it in
Vollsjo.
In May, he created a
Facebook page featuring a police officer holding his hand up in a
“stop” gesture in front of the Swedish flag. The page has more
than 600 likes and posts like “Don’t destroy a genuine village”
and “Don’t ruin the beautiful hotel.”
Lars Vilhelm
Larsson, local head of the Sweden Democrats, filed a motion with
Sjobo municipality asking it to buy the hotel and all vacant property
in the village to prevent such shelters. That was eventually turned
down as financially irresponsible.
Meanwhile, the hotel
project went to the urban planning committee in July. It passed after
the committee chairman, Carl-Anders Lillas, used his double vote to
break a tie. Mr. Lillas said he had made a technical decision, not a
political one, based on the building’s suitability.
A handful of
residents appealed to the County Administrative Board of Skane, among
them Tommy and Britt Akesson, who run a local grocery.
In their complaint,
they argued that a committee focused on things like building safety
doesn’t have the authority to determine if the village should get
an asylum home. They also said the community was worried migrants
would cause an increase in social problems and a drop in property
prices.
“There’s a need
for a much broader engagement from those in charge in such an
important issue,” they said.
The developer called
the criticism unfounded. “This won’t increase social tensions
unless those who already live there start them,” he said. “I’m
convinced these children and teenagers will behave. These aren’t
people who’ve come here to start trouble, they’re fleeing wars.”
A county official
said a decision on the appeals was likely in six to nine months.
Write to Anna Molin
at anna.molin@wsj.com
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