In Sweden’s last census in which citizens were asked about their religious beliefs, in 1930, fifteen people said that they were Muslims. Since 1975, when Sweden started its transformation from a homogenous, Swedish country into a multicultural and multi-religious one, the number of Muslims has exploded. Now, approximately one million Muslims live here — Sunni, Shia and Ahmadiyya from all the corners of the world — and Mosques are built and planned all over the country.

No one, however, seems to have asked the crucial question upon which Sweden’s future depends: Is Islam compatible with democracy?

The Swedish establishment has not grasped that Islam is more than a private religion, and therefore it dismisses all questions about Islam with the argument that Sweden has freedom of religion.

Two facts point to Islam not being compatible with democracy. First, there is no country where Islam is dominant that can be considered a democracy with freedom of speech and equal justice under law. Some point to Malaysia and Indonesia — two countries where flogging and other corporal punishments are meted out, for example, to women showing too much hair or skin, as well as to anyone who makes fun of, questions or criticizes Islam. Others point to Turkey as an example of an “Islamic democracy” — a country which routinely imprisons journalists, political dissidents and random people thought to have “offended” President Erdogan, “Islam” or “the nation.”

Second, Muslims in Europe vote collectively. In France, 93% of Muslims voted for the current president, François Hollande, in 2012. In Sweden, the Social Democrats reported that 75% of Swedish Muslims voted for them in the general election of 2006; and studies show that the “red-green” bloc gets 80-90% of the Muslim vote.

It is no secret that democracy can be used to abolish democracy — yet, this crucial issue is completely taboo in Sweden. Politicians, authorities and journalists all see Islam as just another religion. They seem to have no clue that Islam is also a political ideology, a justice system (sharia) and a specific culture that has rules for virtually everything in a person’s life: how to dress; who your friends should be; which foot should go first when you enter the bathroom. Granted, not all Muslims follow all these rules, but that does not change the fact that Islam aspires to control every aspect of human life — the very definition of a totalitarian ideology.

While the establishment closes its eyes to the problems that come with a rapidly growing Muslim population in Sweden, ordinary Swedes seem to be growing increasingly upset. Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, however, appears to be at a complete loss as to why this is. He recently told the British newspaper, Financial Times:

“But the more surreal thing is that all the numbers are going in the right direction, but the picture the public have is that the country is now going in the wrong direction. It’s not only a question about if they are afraid of the refugee crisis; it’s as if everything is going in the wrong direction.”

This comment says a lot about how disconnected Prime Minister Löfven is from the reality that ordinary Swedes are facing. The mainstream media withhold information about most of the violence that goes on in, and around, the asylum houses in the country, and it is not very likely that Stefan Löfven reads the alternative media sites; he and others in power have, in unison, dubbed them “hate sites.” He obviously has no idea about the anger and despair many Swedes are now feeling. It may have finally begun to dawn on them that Swedish Sweden will soon be lost forever, and in many areas replaced by a Middle Eastern state of affairs where different immigrant groups (mainly Muslims) make war on each other as well as on the Swedes.

While the establishment closes its eyes to the problems that come with a rapidly growing Muslim population in Sweden, ordinary Swedes seem to be growing increasingly upset. Prime Minister Stefan Löfven (right), however, appears to be at a complete loss as to why this is. Pictured at left: The results of rioting in a Stockholm suburb, December 2014.

The people suffering most cruelly in the “New Sweden” are the elderly. The costs of immigration borne by the welfare state have led to a quarter of a million retirees living below the EU poverty line. Meanwhile, the government recently added another 30 billion kronor (about $3.6 billion) to the migration budget. The 70 billion kronor ($8.4 billion) Sweden will spend on asylum seekers in 2016 is more than what the entire police force and justice system cost, more than national defense costs, and twice the amount of child benefits.

Sweden’s 9.5 million residents are thus forced to spend 70 billion kronor on letting citizens of other countries come in. In comparison, the United States, with its 320 million residents, spent $1.56 billion on refugees in 2015. The editorial columnist PM Nilsson commented in the business paper, Dagens Industri:

“To understand the scope of the increase in spending, a historic look back can be worthwhile. When the right bloc came to power in 2006, the cost was 8 billion [kronor] a year. In 2014, it had gone up to 24 billion. That summer, then Minister of Finance Anders Borg talked about the increase being the most dramatic shift in the state budget he had ever seen. The year after, 2015, the cost rose to 35 billion, and in 2016, it is projected to rise to 70 billion.”

For many years, the politicians managed to fool the Swedish people into thinking that even if immigration presented an initial cost, the immigrants would soon enable the country to turn a profit. Now, more and more research indicates that the asylum seeker immigrants rarely or never find work. The daily newspaper Sydsvenskan reported in February, for example, that 64% of Malmö’s immigrants are still unemployed after living in Sweden for ten years. The government openly calculates in its budget that in four years, 980,000 people will be living on either sickness benefits, disability pensions, unemployment benefits, “introduction benefits” or social welfare.

Swedes, who for many years have paid the highest taxes in the world without whining, are now taking to social media to express their anger that their money is going to citizens of other countries. More and more Swedes are choosing to emigrate from Sweden, mainly to the other Nordic countries, but also to Spain, Portugal and Great Britain, where taxes on pensions are considerably less.

But there are worse problems than the economic aspect. A sense of insecurity and fear has gripped the many Swedes who live close to asylum houses. On some level, the government seems to have grasped that danger: in a recent decision to continue maintaining border controls, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman wrote:

“The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap), MSB, makes the assessment that the flow of migrants still brings challenges to upholding security in society, when it comes to the ability to maintain certain important public functions, among other things. Several of these challenges are expected to persist over time. The Police Authority’s assessment is still that a serious threat to public order and internal security exists. The Immigration Service still advocates border controls.”

Despite these ominous words, politicians still do not seem to understand that many Swedes are already experiencing “a serious threat to public order and internal security.” New asylum houses are opening at an alarming pace, against the will of the people living near them. In the Stockholm suburb of Spånga-Tensta, on April 15, local authorities held a public meeting, the purpose of which was to allow local residents to ask the politicians and officials questions about planned housing for 600 migrants — next to a school. The meeting, which was filmed, showed a riotous mood among those gathered there, many shouting that they were going to fight “until their last breath” to keep the plans from materializing.

Some of the comments and questions were:

• “We have seen how many problems there have been at other asylum houses – stabbings, rapes and harassment. How can you guarantee the safety for us citizens? This is going to create a sense of us against them, it’s going to create hate! Why these large houses, why not small ones with ten people in each? Why haven’t you asked us, the people who live here, if we want this? How will you make this safe for us?”
• “We already have problems at the existing asylum houses. It’s irresponsible of you to create a situation where we put our own and our children’s health in jeopardy, with people who are not feeling well and are in the wrong environment. Why is this house right next to a school? What is your analysis?”
• “Will Swedes be allowed to live in these houses? Our young people have nowhere to live. You politicians should solve the housing issue for the people already living here, not for all the people in the world.”

When the chairman of the meeting, Green Party representative Awad Hersi, of Somali descent, thanked the audience for the questions without giving any answers, the mood approached that of a lynch mob. People shouted: “Answer! Answer our questions! We demand answers!”

Everything points to the so far docile Swedes now having had enough of the irresponsible immigration policy that has been going on for many years, under socialist and conservative governments alike.

People are furious at the wave of rapes that have given Sweden the second-highest rate of rape in the world, after only Lesotho, and that recently forced the Östersund police to issue a warning to women and girls not to go outside alone after dark. People are scared: the number of murders and manslaughters has soared. During the first three months of this year alone, there have been 40 murders and 57 attempted murders, according to statistics compiled by the journalist Elisabeth Höglund.

The authorities have long claimed that lethal violence in Sweden is on the decline, but that is compared to a record-breaking year, 1989, when mass immigration to Sweden was already in full swing. If one instead were to compare the present to the 1950s and 1960s, when Sweden was still a homogenous country, the number of murders and manslaughters has doubled. Recently, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brottsförebyggande rådet), BRÅ, had to admit that lethal violence did, in fact, increase in 2015, when 112 people were killed — 25 more than the year before. It was also revealed that the kind of lethal violence that has gone down was run-of-the-mill drunken homicides committed by Swedes, while the number of gangster-style hits carried out by immigrants has gone up dramatically. Improved trauma care for wounded victims also helps keep the number of murders and manslaughters down.

A recent poll showed that 53% of Swedes now think immigration is the most important issue facing the country. The change from 2015 is dramatic — last year, only 27% said that immigration was most important. Another poll showed that 70% of Swedes feel that the amount of immigration to Sweden is too high. This is the fourth year in a row that skepticism about the magnitude of immigration has increased.

More and more people also seem to worry about the future of Sweden as a democracy with an increasing number of Muslims — through continued immigration as well as Muslim women having significantly more children than Swedish women do.

As statistics on religious beliefs are no longer kept, no one knows exactly how many Muslims are in Sweden. Last year, a poll showed that Swedes believe 17% of the population is Muslim, while the actual number, according to the polling institute Ipsos Mori, may be more like 5%. The company does not account for how it arrived at this number, and it is in all likelihood much too low. Ipsos Mori probably counted how many members Muslim congregations and organizations have, but as Islam is also a culture, and the country is equally affected by the Muslims who do not actively practice their faith, yet live according to Islamic culture.

In 2012, the Swedish alternative newspaper, Dispatch International, calculated how many Muslims were registered residents of Sweden at that time, based on the Swedish name registry. The number the paper arrived at was 574,000, plus or minus 20,000. For obvious reasons, illegals and asylum seekers were not included. The actual number may therefore have been much higher.

Since then, close to 300,000 people have sought asylum in Sweden. Not all of them have had their applications approved, but despite that, very few actually leave Sweden. The Immigration Service told Gatestone Institute that only 9,700 people were deported last year. Most asylum seekers are Muslim, which means that the number of Muslims in Sweden is fast approaching one million, or 10% of the population.

In his book Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat, published in 2005, Dr. Peter Hammond describes what has always happened throughout history when the number of Muslims in a country increases. Admittedly generalities, Hammond outlines the following:

• As long as the Muslims make up about 1%, they are generally considered a peace-loving minority who do not bother anyone.
• At 2-3%, some start proselytizing to other minorities and disgruntled groups, especially in prison and among street gangs.
• At 5%, Muslims have an unreasonably large influence relative to their share of the population. Many demand halal slaughtered meat, and have been pushing the food industry to produce and sell it. They have also started to work toward the government giving them autonomy under sharia law. Hammond writes that the goal of Islam is not to convert the whole world, but rather, to establish sharia law all over the world.
• When Muslims reach 10%, historically, lawlessness increases. Some start to complain about their situation, start riots and car fires, and threaten people they feel insult Islam.
• At 20%, violent riots erupt, jihadi militia groups are formed, people are murdered, and churches and synagogues are set ablaze.
• When the Muslims reach 40% of the population, there are widespread massacres, constant terror attacks and militia warfare.
• At 60%, there is the possibility of uninhibited persecution of non-Muslims, sporadic ethnic cleansing, possible genocide, implementation of sharia law and jizya (the tax for “protection” that unbelievers must pay).
• When there are 80% Muslims in the country, they have taken control of the government apparatus and are, as in, for instance, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, committing violence in the name of Islam or political power.
• When 100% are Muslims, the peace in the house of Islam is supposed to come — hence the claim that Islam is the “religion of peace.”

Hammond also writes that in many countries, such as France, Belgium, Great Britain and Sweden, most of the Muslim population lives in Islamic enclaves — and apparently prefer not to be assimilated into a Western society. This detachment strengthens the group internally, allowing them to exercise greater power than their share of the population might indicate.

Hammond’s description of the 10%-limit accurately describes Sweden. In the so-called exclusion areas, there are car torchings every day, and riots occur in the cities. (To name but a few examples, there were serious riots in Malmö 2008, Gothenburg 2009, Stockholm 2013, and Norrköping and Växjö 2015.) Sometimes, the unrest starts after a local Muslim has been arrested or shot by the police. Muslim leaders then immediately say they sympathize with their people’s reaction. During the Husby riots in 2013, Rami Al-Khamisi of the youth organization “Megafonen” wrote: “We can see why people are reacting this way.”

The artist Lars Vilks, who drew the Muslim prophet Muhammed as a roundabout dog, has been the target of several assassination attempts, and now lives under round-the-clock police protection.

Yet, almost no one in Sweden is willing to speak of these problems and how it all fits together. For months, Gatestone Institute has called politicians, civil servants, organizations and various minority groups, to ask how they feel about Islam in Sweden. Do they think Islam is compatible with democracy, freedom of speech and legal equality — and if so, in what way or what way not?

The questions seemed to provoke anger as well as fear. Some of the people we called said they were angry at the mere questions, but assured the callers that Islam poses no problem whatsoever for Sweden. Others appeared frightened and refused to answer altogether. In the hopes of getting at least some honest answers, we presented ourselves as ordinary, concerned Swedes. Countless people hung up the phone, and in general, many answers pointed to an abysmal ignorance about what Islam is, what consequences the Islamization of a country might have, or how much trouble Sweden really is in. The country appears totally unprepared for what lies ahead.

Ingrid Carlqvist is a journalist and author based in Sweden, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow of Gatestone Institute.

June 1: The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå), released a report which showed that 11,007 people have been sentenced to deportation after being convicted of crimes. However, the report makes no mention of how many of these individuals have actually been deported. The number of convictions that include deportation has decreased, despite an increasing crime rate among foreigners in Sweden. In the 1970s, about 500 a year were sentenced to deportation; in 2004, the number had risen to 1,074, but in 2014 only 644 received this verdict.

Not only are fewer people sentenced to deportation — but more and more, those who are to be deported refuse to leave the country. In October of last year, daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported that 30,000 people whose asylum application had been rejected and were scheduled for deportation, had gone missing. The police say they lack the resources to track down these illegals. Patrik Engström, head of the border police at the Department of National Operations (NOA), told the paper: “We put these people on the wanted list, but we do not engage in an active search for them. We wait for tips and things like that.”

June 1: On the evening of May 31, a man was pushed in front of a speeding subway train in Stockholm. The victim was a 23-year-old Swedish student at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. He received skull fractures and lacerations, lost half his foot, broke his ribs and collarbone and punctured one of his lungs. Whether he will ever fully recover remains unclear. The day after, a 34-year-old Algerian-Swedish citizen was apprehended for the crime. The attacker, who was already suspected of another violent subway crime, was identified and caught with the aid of the general public, who recognized him from photographs published. He is now being held in custody, pending trial.

June 2: A Swedish Jewish family told the Jerusalem Post they have fled Sweden and taken up residency in Mallorca. Dan, whose parents came to Sweden when thousands of Danish Jews were rescued during World War II, said:

“All my life I’d been grateful to be part of a civilized society. And, until about 2005, I felt blessed to live in a true social democracy, where people willingly paid high taxes for a fine welfare system and liberal values.

“Sure, the sunshine and lifestyle played some part in our decision [to move], but the real reason was Sweden’s changing demographics and politics. The radical, left-wing establishment became totally obsessed with multiculturalism and political correctness, which we did not need reminding had been part of Swedish ethos for centuries.”

His wife Karla added: “If you disagree with the establishment, you are immediately called a racist or fascist, which we definitely are not. At times I felt that this was what it must have been like to live in the old Soviet Union.”

June 2: Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg announced that from now on, it would employ security guards around the clock at Sahlgrenska’s three hospitals. The head of security, Peter Alverman, told Sveriges television:

“There are constant threats against our staff. But more than anything, we are doing this because of increasing gang crime in Gothenburg; it finds its way into our hospitals and causes concern among staff as well as among other patients.”

The guards will cost nine million kronor (over $1 million) a year — money that could of course have been invested in health care.

June 3: Member of Parliament Daniel Sestrajcic was indicted for disobeying a police officer. Sestrajcic is a member of the Left Party, formerly known as the Communists. The crime was committed in connection with a tent camp of protesting Palestinians being torn down in Malmö, in October 2015. Sestrajcic, who was among the protesters, was initially accused of trying to kick a police officer in the head, but due to lack of evidence, those charges were dropped. However, as he refused to obey police orders and leave the scene, the indictment for disobeying police orders still stands. Mr. Sestrajcic denies the charges.

June 5: Three men, sentenced by Falun District Court to four years in prison for aggravated rape in the town of Ludvika, were acquitted by the Svea Court of Appeals. The prosecutor had appealed the original verdict in the hope that the men would get a longer prison sentence, but the Court of Appeals said that which of the men had done what could not be proven. The three were therefore acquitted and the deportation order revoked.

June 6: On Sweden’s National Day, the Left Party decided to go out and congratulate — not the Swedish people — but the Muslims in Sweden who were starting the fasting month of Ramadan. Discussions ran hot on the party’s Facebook page. One person wrote: “I hope you do not end up in the same situation as the Green Party. I fled from Islamists in Iran, and you are wishing them a happy Ramadan? My condolences.”

June 6: The staff at an asylum house in Ludvika was forced to call the police after a group of Muslims seeking asylum had become dissatisfied with the meals served at the facility. They complained that the food was not “Ramadan compliant,” and the way they expressed their complaints apparently frightened the staff. The police report is unclear about exactly what transpired after that.

June 7: It was reported that Isa Dare, a 4-year-old boy who had been brought into Islamic State territory by his parents, had now been smuggled into Sweden. The reason was apparently to gain access to the free health care the Swedish government decided to offer all illegal aliens in 2012 — at the Swedish taxpayers’ expense. The boy’s 24-year-old mother, Grace “Khadija” Dare, was born in London. She was married to a Swedish citizen Abdul Ghameed Abbas, also known as “Abu Bakr”, who was killed in combat for ISIS in an air raid in November 2014.

In February, the boy became well-known when he was featured in an ISIS video, where he was shown activating a detonator and blowing up a car with four prisoners inside. Posing by the burnt-out car, the 4-year-old yelled: “Allahu Akbar!”

On June 7, it was reported that British citizen Grace “Khadija” Dare had brought her 4-year-old son, Isa Dare, to live in Sweden, in order to benefit from free health care. In February, the boy was featured in an ISIS video, blowing up four prisoners in a car (pictured above). The boy’s father, a jihadist with Swedish citizenship, was killed fighting for ISIS.

June 7: Ardeshir Bibakabadi fled Iran for Sweden because his sexual orientation was not accepted in his home country. Last year, he held lectures at ten schools in Gothenburg, and in an interview with the daily newspaper, Göteborgs-Posten, he explained how hatred against homosexuals flourishes in Swedish schools with Muslim students.

“It was always the same pattern, I felt as if my mere presence were provoking them. When I lectured in big auditoriums, the tensions became abundantly clear. ‘Damn, you are disgusting,’ one student at the Porthälla school yelled at me. Then he charged at me.”

June 8: Three Somali men in their 20s, who locked a 14-year-old girl in a room and took turns raping her, received very lenient sentences — and all three avoided deportation. Two of the men got two and a half years in prison. The third, who was also convicted of drug-related crimes and drunk driving, got three years. After serving their time, they will all be allowed to stay in Sweden, even though they are not Swedish citizens.

June 9: A 19-year-old illegal alien from Somalia, who bit a police officer in the arm while being arrested, was acquitted by the Umeå District Court. The court believed his version of events — that he had acted in a state of panic due to traumatic memories from his home country, and “bad experiences with the police in other countries.”

June 9: For years, the Swedish media has maintained that all who claim to be unaccompanied refugee children are indeed children — no matter how wrinkled and grizzled they are. The notion that many of them lie about their age, in order to get fast-tracked to asylum, has been dismissed as a racist myth. However, an investigative report by the public-service Sveriges Radio, showed that many are in fact adults, resulting in grown men being put in the same facilities as teenagers and children.

Irene Sandqvist, Unit Manager at the Social Services Department in Helsingborg, told the reporter that, in her estimation, at least 25% of the “refugee children” are adults:

“We have even had someone with gray hair, which makes it pretty obvious, I would say. Some are even older than the staff, and this might well put the younger children at risk.”

June 9: Three young men, around 18, were indicted for a violent mugging attack against a Swedish man of about 25, outdoors in the town of Norrköping. One of the young men, Abdimalik Hassan Shido from Somalia, was also indicted for raping the victim at knifepoint in connection with the mugging. The prosecutor wrote:

“In direct connection to the physical assault described, Shido forced NN [the victim] to endure and perform anal and oral intercourse. The coercion consisted of Shido uttering death threats, pointing a knife at NN, and causing him pain by forcing him to perform the sexual acts despite the injuries NN had sustained during the beating.”

The prosecutor demanded that Shido be tried for aggravated rape.

June 10: Back in January, a female employee at an asylum house for minors in Ystad told an Eritrean “unaccompanied refugee child” that he could not play any more video games. The man, who claims to be 17, then put the woman in a stranglehold until another employee intervened.

Despite the seriousness of the crime, the Eritrean received a mild sentence — 35 hours of community service and an order to pay 9,720 kronor (about $1,000) in damages to the woman.

June 10: Abu Muadh, the controversial imam of the Halmstad mosque, gave an interview to the local daily newspaper, Hallandsposten. When asked why he has said that Muslims cannot be friends with non-Muslims, Muadh replied:

“In Islam, there is a difference between friend and comrade. You can see a comrade at the gym, or you can work with them and so on. But you cannot do things that are not allowed in our religion. There are tons of things you can do, like have a barbecue together, but you cannot share religious values. You cannot celebrate Christmas or Ramadan with someone who does not believe. That is not allowed.”

June 11: Danial Rahimi, an Afghan who claims to be a 17-year-old “unaccompanied refugee child”, was arrested on suspicion of child rape in the small village of Bodafors. After a month on remand, he was indicted. According to the prosecution, Rahimi pressed his penis into a young girl’s anus several times, touched her genitals and buttocks, squeezed her breasts and bit them. He forced the girl to the ground and held her down while he raped her, hit her in the face hard, and tried to suffocate her by holding his hand over her nose and mouth. Rahimi denies the charges, but the prosecutor has a strong case, including DNA evidence.

June 12: Riot-like unrest started in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods in Kristianstad and Uppsala. In Kristianstad, fires were started and stones thrown at emergency service vehicles. In Uppsala, the riots went on for several days, and a bus with people aboard was attacked with rocks and other objects that were thrown.

June 13: Public-service Sveriges Television reported that Tobias Lindfors, the owner of the Pite Havsbad hotel and conference center, has been making many millions from his lucrative deal with the Swedish Migration Agency. Pite Havsbad, known as one of the largest swimming and spa facilities in Europe, is sometimes referred to as “the Swedish Riviera”. In May, the facility made news when a Congolese man seeking asylum started a minor fire in his room. During the winter, only 25% of the rooms were occupied, but according to Sveriges Television‘s report, Mr. Lindfors still gets paid for housing 1,300 asylum seekers — regardless of how many are actually staying at the facility. The Swedish Migration Agency has rented Pite Havsbad for four years (excluding two months in midsummer). According to reports, the Agency paid its owner 240 million kronor (roughly $28 million) for the rental.

June 13: When a riot broke out at an asylum house for “unaccompanied refugee children” in Nässjö, two kitchens, worth hundreds of thousands of kronor, were smashed to pieces. The staff did not dare to intervene against the rioters. Instead, they backed away and called the police. Stoves, a refrigerator and freezer, television sets, dishwashers, kitchen furniture and dishes were demolished. The vandals also flung chairs around, damaging windows and doors. According to the police, the riot started because of “dissatisfaction with the food served.”

June 13: A 46-year-old Bosnian ISIS jihadi, considered extremely dangerous, was taken into custody by the Malmö police. However, as he immediately applied for asylum, the Swedish Migration Agency stepped in, took over the case — and prevented him from being deported. Inspector Leif Fransson of the Border Police was quite critical. He told the local daily newspaper, HD/Sydsvenskan:

“As soon as these people throw out their trump card and say ‘Asylum’, the gates of heaven open. Sweden has gotten a reputation as a safe haven for terrorists.”

Nevertheless, after a lightning-fast determination process, it was reported four days later that the ISIS jihadi was denied asylum and would be flown out of Sweden as soon as possible.

June 14: The first indictment since the new law on traveling abroad for the purpose of committing terrorist acts came into effect, was a major setback. Attunda Municipal Court acquitted a 25-year-old man, who in the spring of 2015 bought a one-way ticket to Turkey, but was denied entry and sent back to Stockholm. In his suitcase, police found body armor, knee pads and elbow pads. According to the prosecution, the 25-year-old’s destination was Syria, where he planned to join the Al-Nusra Front, fighting against the Assad regime.

Mark Klamberg, an assistant professor of international law, spoke with the daily, Svenska Dagbladet, right after the acquittal: “If the verdict stands, my conclusion is that it will be very hard to win these types of cases.”

June 14: More and more Swedish police officers are leaving the police force. A feeling of physical insecurity, low wages and discontent with National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson are some of the explanations given. The Police Union recently started the blog Polisliv (“Police Life”), where police officers can tell their stories anonymously — giving the Swedish people an opportunity to get a glimpse of what it is like to work as a police officer in Sweden.

June 14: A report from the Swedish National Audit Office (Riksrevisionen), revealed that the Swedish Migration Agency spent four billion kronor (about $470 million) on accommodation alone for the asylum-seeking migrants who came to Sweden in 2015. The National Audit Office remarked that the costs could have been lowered significantly, if the Migration Agency had worked more effectively and systematically.

June 14: An exceptionally lenient verdict against a rapist from Yemen caused emotions to run high in Mariestad. Maher Al Qalisi attacked a 13-year-old girl, knocked her off a bicycle, knifed her in the face and raped her in a park — yet, he only got 18-months’ probation and will not be deported. Al Qalisi claims he is 17 years old, even though his Yemenite passport says he is 20. If he had been tried as an adult, he would certainly have gotten a more severe punishment. Prosecutor Jonas Lövström was disappointed with the verdict: “It is my firm belief that he is older than 21.”

June 15: The number of threats reported at Swedish Migration Agency offices has more than doubled over the last year — from 94 to 216. Mostly, the threats are directed at agency employees, or concern asylum seekers who act generally threatening.

June 15: According to Swedish law, religious elements are not allowed in Swedish public schools. However, the Muslim students at the Bikupan School in Lessebo have their own prayer room. Teacher Veronica Wilhelmsen explained to public-service Sveriges Radio how this came to be: “They need to feel they can practice their religion here in Sweden and at the school, otherwise they might not come to school at all.”

June 15: The Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society (Myndigheten för ungdoms- och civilsamhällesfrågor) made public which organizations had received the government grants of 212 million kronor (about $25 million) handed out in 2016. The grants are supposed to go to children’s and youth organizations, but aside from municipalities getting money for summer holiday activities, most of the grants go to organizations claiming to work with anti–racism, LGBT-issues and against “islamophobia”.

It turned out that a very controversial group, United Muslims of Sweden (Sveriges förenade muslimer, SFM), was granted over half a million kronor ($55,000). SFM has time and again been associated with extremism and hate speech against homosexuals, but argues that the money is to be used to fight racism and intolerance. Terrorism expert and scholar Magnus Ranstorp told the daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter:

“I see plenty of question marks here. We are talking about a group that has invited hate preachers and whose Salafist orientation is in many ways the very opposite of tolerance.”

June 17: Malmö is one of Sweden’s most attractive places to live for migrants. There is an acute housing shortage, but the municipality has nonetheless decided to prioritize the so-called “newly arrived Swedes”, and has therefore decided to purchase 56 apartments to accommodate the new arrivals. The Sweden Democrats party raged against the decision, and opined that it would be better to send most of the migrants home, since most of them live isolated from the rest of society anyway.

June 20: An Afghan family in Landskrona refused to accept that their daughter had a boyfriend. So they made her marry a relative in their home country — and violently abducted the boyfriend. Three people have now been indicted for forced marriage, battery, robbery and kidnapping. “The motive behind all these crimes,” Prosecutor Ulrika Ekvall explained, “was to restore the family honor.”

June 20: The Swedish EU news website Europaportalen reported that in no other EU country has the number of asylum applications decreased so much as in Sweden. In the last quarter of 2015, close to 88,000 asylum applications were filed, but in the first quarter of 2016, only 8,000 – a 90% drop. The reduction is mainly due to Sweden implementing border controls, as well as identification checks on the Danish side. Germany, which still has no border controls with its neighboring EU countries, on the other hand, saw an increase of asylum applications during the first quarter of 2016, compared to the last quarter of 2015.

June 21: A 30-year-old woman was arrested, suspected of murdering a five-month-old baby at an asylum house in Sunne. The woman is not the baby’s mother, but is said to have “ties to the child.” A few days later, a 20-year-old Somali man was also arrested in the case, and the two have since been held in custody.

June 21: The Green Party laid out a new plan of action to ensure that the party is never again infiltrated by Islamists. The plan presents five focal points. The party had enlisted the help of a Swedish Defense University scholar, Lars Nicander, who claimed that the party had been infiltrated by Islamists long before anyone knew what was going on. The Greens will also initiate a broad discussion about values, including the differences between Swedish leftist liberal equality values and Islam’s view of women.

June 21: Four people were indicted for attacking two police officers in the Hässleholmen neighborhood of Borås. Some 50 people surrounded the officers, while a man carrying a knife crept up beside them and stabbed one of them. It all started as a simple traffic stop for a moped, but things quickly got out of hand when more and more people showed up. A man kicked one of the officers in the chest, and stabbed another one. The female police officer who was stabbed said: “I thought he was aiming to kill me, that is what he wants.”

June 22: A 38-year-old man was charged in absentia, for the murder of a 16-year-old girl who came to Sweden as an “unaccompanied refugee child” in the fall of 2015. In March, she was reported missing, and in May her body was found in a wooded area in southern Stockholm. According to the daily, Aftonbladet, the man, who was 22 years her senior, was married to the girl.

June 22: Triple-murderer Martin Saliba, who was sentenced in absentia to life in prison in January, will not be extradited to Sweden from his old home country, Lebanon. One early March morning last year, two joggers in Uddevalla found two dead men lying on the ground and a dead woman in a car — all shot several times at point-blank range.

Martin Saliba, 22, and his brother Mark, 23, were charged with the murders. Mark was sentenced to life in prison, but the Municipal Court did not think there was sufficient evidence to convict Martin, and so acquitted him. He was therefore at liberty when the case went to the Court of Appeals. On the last day of trial, he failed to show up, and was subsequently placed on the international wanted list after the verdict of life in prison was announced. Now, it seems, he has relocated to Lebanon. As Lebanon does not extradite its citizens, he can live there as a free man.

June 23: Four men and a woman, all Syrians, were indicted at the Sundsvall Municipal Court for kidnapping, severely beating and sexually abusing a man. The man was attacked in a parking lot and for twelve hours driven around in a car. The motive behind the crimes is unclear, but according to local papers, they may be related to business deals gone wrong between the victim and his assailants. The prosecutor has asked for deportation of all the suspects, if convicted.

June 26: A 20-year-old woman was found dead at an asylum house near Jönköping. A 24-year-old man has been arrested, on suspicion of murder. The man confessed to his involvement in the crime; according to his lawyer, the motive was anger over infidelity.

June 26: The Östersund police department admitted that the many sexual attacks against women in the town in February and March of this year, were mostly committed by “asylum seeking youths.” When the rapists were most active, the police put out a warning to women not to go outside alone evenings and nights. The local chief of police, Stephen Jerand, told the daily, Östersunds-Posten: “When we take in people who are fleeing, it is important to inform them early on about what the rules are in Sweden, and that said rules also apply to women.”

June 26: A 25-year-old Afghan was arrested at an asylum house in Mariannelund for the murder of his 22-year-old wife According to reports, after the murder the man ran out onto the front lawn, shouting that he had strangled his wife to death. The couple had a 3-year-old child.

June 27: A Muslim man attacked the St. Pauli church in Malmö. He broke several windows, and when the police arrived, he was at the top of the church, shouting “Allahu Akbar!” He then tried to attack police officers with a wooden cudgel. The man is now suspected of inflicting gross damage, also may be charged for hate crimes.

June 27: Two 24-year-old men of foreign descent were convicted of a series of aggravated robberies against students in Malmö. Several of the victims were held at knifepoint for hours while the robbers emptied their homes and bank accounts. Mahad Munyo Mohamed, who was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison, is a Somali citizen, and Hassan Murtadha Mohammed Hassan, who was sentenced to five years in prison, is a Swedish citizen.

June 28: The much-criticized National Police Commissioner, Dan Eliasson, launched a new campaign to put a stop to the gropings and rapes at music festivals: Bracelets with the words “Do not grope” printed on them. The bracelets will be distributed at festivals, and according to Eliasson, “turn a spotlight on this issue and encourage those affected to report the crime.” Considering that in May, the police’s own Department of National Operations (NOA) published a report that clearly states that 80% of the perpetrators are of foreign descent, many found the notion of bracelets with text in Swedish printed on them somewhat puzzling.

June 28: An Eritrean, who raped a Swedish woman in a public restroom in Sundsvall, gets to stay in Sweden after being sentenced to one year and four months in prison. The Swedish Migration Agency apparently did not feel he could be sent back to his home country. The mild sentence was given because he claimed to be only 19-years-old.

Ingrid Carlqvist is a journalist and author based in Sweden, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow of Gatestone Institute.

Are some individuals receiving preferential treatment under Sweden’s “hate speech” laws? It seems that way.

Under the Swedish Penal Code, a person can be held responsible for incitement if a statement or representation made “threatens or disrespects an ethnic group or other such group of persons with regards to race, color, national or ethnic origin, religious belief or sexual orientation”.

In 2015, the imam at Halmstad mosque, Abu Muadh, said that homosexuality was a “virus” from which parents were obliged to protect their children.

The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Rights (RFSL) filed a legal complaint in October 2015. “[M]any people are listening [to the imam] and there is a risk that the opinions and other expressions of homophobia will spread among believers, as they attach great importance to their representatives’ words”, said Ulrika Westerlund, chairman of RFSL.

The Swedish legal establishment however, seemed entirely unconcerned; the imam was not prosecuted.

“[F]or something to be incitement, it needs to reach a certain level and in this context, the assessment is that this statement does not reach that level”, said Martin Inglund, acting investigation officer at Halmstad police. He added that an assessment had been made based on freedom of religion, as well as the European Convention on Human Rights. It took the police only one week to make the decision not to prosecute the imam.

“It is a strange decision, said Jonnié Jonsson, chairman of RFSL Halland, “I do not think anyone has the right to violate other people in the name of religion”.

Then there is the recent case of Stefan Vestling, a local politician from the Sweden Democrat Party. He was recently prosecuted and convicted for “incitement against an ethnic group”, when he wrote the following comment on the official Facebook page of the Sweden Democrats Party in Norberg in December 2014:

“Muslims who have ended up in the ‘diaspora’ are at war. A Muslim who lives in Sweden is thus living in a war zone, where it is allowed to rape a woman, as this is a Muslim right according to the Quran. [A Muslim] is allowed to have sex with women who have been conquered in war… that is to say the infidels’ women (Quran Sura 4:3, 4:24). Easiest for ‘Swedish’ horny Muslims is of course to join ISIS where they can have their sick, devilish desires fully satisfied”.

The prosecutor failed to convince the district court that Vestling had committed a crime. “Freedom of expression includes the right to convey such information and opinions and ideas that offend shock or disturb” the court wrote in its ruling. However, at the Court of Appeals in Svea, in December 2016, the court found that Vestling’s post had been offensive to Muslims. The appeals court seemingly had no problem with the first part of Vestling’s post. It was the last sentence, “Easiest for ‘Swedish’ horny Muslims is of course to join ISIS where they can have their sick, devilish desires fully satisfied”, which was considered to be in violation of the Penal Code. Vestling was handed a suspended jail sentence and a fine. He has appealed the verdict to the Supreme Court.

Both the statements made by Abu Muadh and the statements made by Stefan Vestling were offensive; yet the Swedish authorities ended up protecting the imam from legal repercussions, even though prosecuting him would send an important signal to other Muslim preachers who view homosexuality in a similar way. That they do has been documented by a Swedish-Muslim blogger, who wrote:

During my years as a Muslim, I have visited several Swedish mosques from north to south. In all the mosques, homophobia was the norm. I have heard worse things than “homosexuality is a virus.” In no mosque, I repeat not one, have I come across teachings that tolerate homosexuality… The fact that the media act as if they were astonished [at Abu Muadh’s statement] shows how little contact they have with Muslim environments in Sweden. For those who have been on the “inside”, who have visited mosques and spent time with Muslims who are active in the mosques, the imam’s views [sound] completely mainstream.

Swedish experts largely consider Abu Muadh a radical, who moves in Salafist circles and has encouraged jihad, glorifying martyrdom in the battle to spread Islam. In a video clip on YouTube, he urges people who have “sinned” to wage jihad to be forgiven by God. In an interview with Hallandsposten in June 2016, he said that Muslims should not befriend unbelievers. He has argued that Muslims must not emulate the dress and haircuts of “kuffars” (infidels) and has declared 95% of all TV programs “haram” (forbidden).

In Sweden, comments that object to sexual violence against women in the Quran are prosecuted, but calling homosexuality a “virus” is fine.

Homosexuals are not the only ones to find themselves among those groups that Swedish society apparently no longer count as minorities worthy of protection. Anti-Semitism has become so socially acceptable in Sweden that anti-Semites can get away with anything, and no one even notices, as Nima Gholam Ali Pour reports. One of Sweden’s main news outlets, in fact, described antisemitism as simply a different opinion. Clearly, neither homosexuals nor Jews count for much in the eyes of Swedish authorities.

In addition, Swedish authorities give large sums of money to organizations that invite hate preachers who support terrorist organizations such as ISIS and Al Qaeda.

The Gothenburg-based nonprofit organization, Swedish Federation of Muslims (SFM,) was handed a government subsidy of 535,200 SEK [$60,000] in 2016. This is in addition to 150,000 SEK [$17,000] that SFM received from the city of Gothenburg.

SFM applied for the money “to combat Islamophobia”, which the organization considers “one of the biggest problems in Sweden right now”. One of the speakers SFM hired was Michael Skråmo, who has publicly called on his fellow Muslims to join ISIS. Now, calling himself Abdul Samad al Swedi, he has appeared in propaganda videos, posing with Kalashnikov assault rifles alongside his small children, outside Kobane in Syria. Abu Muadh is also a regular speaker.

Michael Skråmo, a Swedish convert and ISIS jihadist, brought his family to Syria. He has also urged Muslims in Sweden to bomb their workplaces.

Terror researcher Magnus Ranstorp said that he was surprised that SFM had been awarded state grants. “I see lots of question marks. We’re talking about a group that invited hate preachers, whose Salafist orientation is in many ways the opposite of tolerance”, he said. The decision to award SFM government subsidies also runs counter to the government’s agreement with the four conservative Alliance parties that no public money should go to advocate violence.

What is the Swedish authorities’ response to the official granting of money to organizations that host extremists? “Of course this is serious, and it is our view that this must be factored into future contribution assessments”, said Daniel Norlander, chief secretary of the National Authority Against Violent Extremism. The authority apparently does not think that the money should be returned or that there should be any sanctions. After all, we are only talking about preachers of violent jihad.

Judith Bergman is a writer, columnist, lawyer and political analyst.