re: #454 captdiggs

You showed one (that is 1) newspaper article in The Local, which was written while there were riots in Rosengrd; and in that situation rescue personnel requested police backup, as they - too - were victims of the rioters.

As noted above, you can not conclude from an article written in a riot situation to the situation today; where there - in spite of the incidents such as the one referred above - are no riots in any true sense of the word (I think someone from Chicago would laugh). Let me quote the regional police, interviewed in the newspaper Kvllsposten:

– Det har varit vldigt lugnt ute i Rosengrd en lngre tid nu, sger Lars Karsten.

- It has been very calm in Rosengrd for a longer period, says Lars Karsten.

And Rosengrd is just a small part of a relatively small city in Sweden. If you want to find troubled (immigrant) neighborhoods in Europe, I’d start looking somewhere else. Now, let me point out that the police in Skne (the region of Malm) is indeed worried that new riots may break out, but that’s about it. Rosengrd is simply a troubled neighborhood with the often dangerous mix of many young people (by Swedish standards), many poor people (by Swedish standards) and a very high rate of unemployment (by Swedish standards, once again).

During the election campaign in Norway some months back, the populist right Progress Party (Frp) tried to pull of the Malm stunt. Ilmar Reepalu, “the strong man of Malm politics” (and - incidentally - Estonian-born) responded by inviting the Frp leadership to Malm. He stated:

- D ska de sjlvklart f trffa politiker i stadsdelen Rosengrd och f hra hur det fungerar dr ute och bli av med alla de felaktiga rykten som de tydligen har hrt.

- Then they will be able to meet politicians in the Rosengrd part of city, and they can hear for themselves how it works there and get rid of all the fake rumours that they’ve obviously heard.

dn.se

The head of police in Rosengrd also gave his reaction to the claims of Frp, as noted in this Norwegian newspaper article: vg.no

A longer quote from this article (my translation from Norwegian):

- Oslo and other large cities in Norway (like they even exist, my note) could get close to the conditions we see in Malm: Where rescue personnel do not dare driving into certain parts of town, where sharia laws govern entirely and Swedish law is set aside, said Siv Jensen in her speech during the executive committee meeting of the Progress Party.

The head of police in Rosengrd thinks the scare scenario of the Norwegian politician is completely wrong.

- This does not match at all. The police goes everywhere and it is Swedish law that apply in Rosengrd, established head of police Brje Aronsson to VG Nett.

The head of police explains that there was a period during the riots last fall where the fire department did not go to certain parts of Rosengrd in fear of being bombarded with stones from raging youth. In addition, ambulance personnell has experienced that people have stolen equipment and medicine from ambulances.

- But do you have the same control in Rosengrd as in other parts of Malm?

- We can’t deny that there are areas in Rosengrd which are very segregated and where we experience difficulties with for instance language. We especially have problems in the area around what’s called Herregrden, but for the most the security situation in Rosengrd is as good as in the rest of Malm, says Aronsson.

Debating the actual issues Rosengrd (and other places) are faced with would be interesting. Debating the myths created by various international sources with a clear ideological agenda and by the nativist right Sweden Democrats is simply not that interesting.