Swedish PM says integration of immigrants has
failed, fueled gang crime
Reuters
April 28,
2023:27 PM GMT+2Updated a year ago
STOCKHOLM,
April 28 (Reuters) - Sweden has failed to integrate the vast numbers of
immigrants it has taken in over the past two decades, leading to parallel
societies and gang violence, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said on
Thursday, as she launched a series of initiatives to combat organised crime.
Many Swedes
were shocked earlier this month after violent riots left more than 100 police
injured. The violence erupted after a Swedish-Danish politician burned the
Quran at a rally and sought to hold more in several immigrant-dominated
neighborhoods. read more
Andersson
blamed criminals and said both Islamism and right-wing extremism had been
allowed to fester in Sweden, in unusually frank and self-critical comments.
"Segregation
has been allowed to go so far that we have parallel societies in Sweden. We
live in the same country but in completely different realities," Andersson
told a news conference.
The number
of people in Sweden born abroad has doubled in the last two decades to 2
million, or a fifth of the population. Andersson's Social Democrats have been
in power for 28 of the last 40 years, including the last eight.
Andersson
said she wanted to introduce local youth crime boards where social services and
police could collaborate. She also proposed tools to make sure that youths
stayed in schools and off the streets without the consent of parents.
"Integration
has been too poor at the same time as we have had a large immigration. Society
has been too weak, resources for the police and social services have been too
weak," she said.
Sweden,
which holds a general election later this year, has radically tightened its
immigration policies since taking in more people per capita than any other European
Union country during the migration crisis in 2015. It now has one of the bloc's
most restrictive policies.
Human
rights organisation Amnesty International has been critical of Sweden's
tightening of policies, claiming it is causing human suffering and making
integration even harder for immigrants.
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