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Sweden’s Afghan “Rapefugees” by Ingrid Carlqvist

  • Some 90 young men — “mostly Afghan refugee kids,” according to police — were apprehended in connection with the mass sexual assaults at the concert.

  • A recurring theme in recent articles by prominent feminists is the assertion that ethnic Swedish men act exactly the same as migrant gang-rapists.
  • One can draw only one conclusion: Feminists would rather protect Muslim men from criticism than protect Swedish women from sexual assaults.
  • None of the women’s shelters would admit that the mass sexual abuse of Swedish women might have anything to do with the perpetrators’ ethnicity or religion. They did not wish to “generalize,” they said — then hung up.
  • What Swedish politicians intend to do about the “Rapefugees” that are now in the country is anyone’s guess.

On New Year’s Eve, the same kind of mass sexual assaults that happened to women in Cologne — in Arabic called the “Taharrush” game — also took place in Sweden, but the police and the media have chosen to bury the information. The men, it turned out, were mainly Afghan, and claiming to be “unaccompanied refugee children.”

In reality, many of them are much older than 18, and are now commonly referred to with the recently coined name, “Rapefugees,” rather than “refugee children.”

It recently emerged that the Immigration Service urged its administrators to accept as a “child” everyone who looked under the age of 40 — apparently without any thought as to how inappropriate it is to place grown men in elementary and secondary schools with teenage girls. As Sweden — until December — kept its doors wide open to the migrants of the world, the country has accepted vastly more asylum seekers than its Nordic neighbors. Statistics for 2012-2015 are available via Eurostat, and provide the following statistics on the number of migrant arrivals:

  • Sweden: 342,635
  • Norway: 63,370
  • Denmark: 41,290
  • Finland: 40,470
  • Iceland: 675

Many who seek asylum in Sweden come from war-torn Syria: 51,338 in 2015. Afghanistan comes in at second place with 41,564 for the last year — an increase of a staggering 1,239% compared to 2014. Most of the Afghans seeking asylum claim to be children, and are therefore fast-tracked to being admitted within six months of the asylum application.

A few days after the story broke on the “Circle of Hell” attacks in Cologne, the alternative media website Nyheter Idag revealed that the respected daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, had known about similar attacks at a music festival in Stockholm in August 2015, but had declined to write about it.

Possibly to defend itself against accusations of a cover-up, Dagens Nyheter furiously attacked the Stockholm police. The newspaper claimed that the police had refused to corroborate reports of the attacks, thus tying the publishers’ hands and preventing the newspaper from running the story. Dagens Nyheter even claimed that a high-ranking police officer said, “This is a sore spot. Sometimes we are afraid to tell the truth because that might benefit the Sweden Democrats. The police do need to take responsibility for this.”

The police have accepted the blame — partly. The National Police Chief, Dan Eliasson, has now been tasked with investigating why the information was withheld.

Political decisions are not supposed to be made by the police. The leader of the Sweden Democrats Party, Jimmie Åkesson, reacted strongly to his party even being mentioned in this context, and demanded that National Police Chief Eliasson immediately be removed from office. Eliasson has long been a controversial figure. He started his career as a bass player in the punk rock band Bad Boo Band, best known for the radio hit song “Knulla i Bangkok” (F**king in Bangkok”), released in 1979. After his music career faded, Eliasson pursued a career in politics and public administration, and worked closely with several government ministers of the Social Democrat Party. When the Social Democrats lost the election in 2006, he was appointed Director General of the Immigration Service (2007-2011); then became Director General of the Social Security Service. In January 2015, he was appointed National Police Chief.

Despite such a roaring career, Eliasson has, on several occasions, made a spectacle of himself. In June 2007, the former Chancellor of Justice, Göran Lambertz, revealed that Eliasson, then State Secretary with the Justice Department, tried to get Lambertz to stop criticizing flaws in the Swedish judicial system. Eliasson’s request came after the Chancellor of Justice had initiated a report on the many Swedish men who had been wrongly convicted, mainly of sex crimes.

“I particularly remember meeting Bodström’s [then Minister of Justice] State Secretary in May 2006,” Lambertz said in a radio interview. “Eliasson made it clear that the minister would publicly renounce me if I did not tone down my criticism. I perceived this as undue influence.”

As head of Social Services, Eliasson tweeted in February 2014 that the mere sight on TV of the Sweden Democrats’ party leader, Jimmie Åkesson, made him physically sick. And now Eliasson is supposed to head an investigation into why the police withheld information on how “Rapefugees” attacked Swedish girls at the music festival “We Are Sthlm” [short for Stockholm] in August 2015?

When the news of the mass sexual assaults finally broke in early January, it was clear that the men involved had been so-called “unaccompanied refugee children.” Some 90 young men were apprehended by the police in connection with the sexual assaults. “According to an internal police report,” Dagens Nyheter wrote, “there was a large group of young people, ‘mostly Afghan refugee kids’, who stood out at the concert.”

In a similar scandal, it was also recently revealed that Swedish girls were sexually assaulted by groups of young men “of foreign background” in the summer of 2015, during a music festival in Malmö’s Pildammsparken park. The photographer Freddy Mardell told internet radio station Granskning Sverige that he witnessed the chaos, with crying, hysterical girls. Mardell took photographs and offered them to local daily newspaper, Kvällsposten. The newspaper declined to publish them.

Scenes from a Malmö summer music festival… Left: Four young men surround and sexually assault a young woman. Right: Police arrest a suspect, as sexual assault victims cry in the background. The photographer reported that Swedish girls were sexually assaulted by groups of young men “of foreign background.”

It is also now clear that girls were attacked by large groups of Muslim men on New Year’s Eve in the Swedish cities of Kalmar and Malmö as well. The daily newspaper Kvällsposten reported that “gangs of young men surrounded inebriated girls on New Year’s Eve in Malmö.” Incidents happened in several locations in Malmö city, around the King’s Park and Central Station.

One police report read: “Something that stood out compared to earlier years was that a couple of hundred that I perceive as ‘unaccompanieds from Afghanistan’ drifted around the city, causing mayhem. There were several cases of large gangs surrounding mostly intoxicated girls/women and molesting them.” In Kalmar, where people had gathered in the square, Larmtorget, to celebrate, several girls were subjected to sexual molestation. So far, 16-17 complaints have been filed to the police.

“Lisa” told the local paper, Barometern:

“We stood at the edge of the square at first, but we noticed immediately how many men were in the square and when we went out there, things got really unpleasant. These were men who did not speak Swedish, men of all ages. They surrounded us and started groping; they also took hold of people’s heads and forcibly kissed their cheeks and foreheads. When we told them to leave or stop, they just laughed at us and asked ‘What have I done?’ We have all reported this to the police. It is outrageous that one should have to be afraid to go out at night or ride a bus alone in the evening. And we are not the only ones who have had this experience; I have girlfriends in Kalmar who say that they would rather not go out by themselves after dark. One thing is for sure, I will never celebrate New Year’s in Kalmar again, I would rather stay with my parents at home.”

Swedish feminists appear to be the group least upset by the “Rapefugee” attacks. They turn their backs on the victims by refusing to acknowledge that mass sexual abuse such as Taharrush is part of Sweden’s new reality.

During the past week, newspapers have been overflowing with opinion pieces in which various feminists claim that these attacks have nothing to do with religion or ethnicity, but with the bare fact that the perpetrators are men. One can draw only one conclusion: Feminists would rather protect Muslim men from criticism than protect Swedish women from sexual assaults. A recurring theme in the articles is the assertion that ethnic Swedish men act exactly the same as migrant gang-rapists.

Remarks by feminists go:

The last article was written by Gudrun Schyman, an ex-communist and current leader of the Feminist Initiative Party. In an interview with the podcast, “The Feminist Inspection,” Schyman said that mass sexual assaults are “nothing new” but “have been around for a very long time in all of our countries. “That is just how it is,” Schyman claimed, “men take liberties when anonymity and proximity enable them. I do not think it has accelerated, it is just that the propensity to report it has increased.”

Viktor Banke, a (male) feminist and lawyer, lamented in the free daily, Metro, that the attacks “play right into the hands of the Sweden Democrats… If necessary,” he wrote, “we should be able to talk about a perpetrator’s background. But we cannot afford to let the debate on the vulnerability of women be hijacked by people who take an interest in women’s rights only when they smell a perpetrator of another skin color.”

Gatestone Institute called a large number of women’s shelters and asked them what they thought about the mass sexual abuse of Swedish women. None would admit that the abuse might have anything to do with ethnicity or religion. They did not wish to “generalize,” they said; then, as soon as the question of ethnicity or religion was mentioned, they hung up.

In Norway, however, the police are well aware of the differences between Western and Islamic views of women. Eivind Borge, head of the Tactical Intelligence Department of the National Criminal Investigation Service (Kripos), told the daily newspaper Aftenposten that attacks like those in Sweden and Germany have, to his knowledge, not yet taken place in Norway, but that the police are prepared: “A lot of asylum seekers who have come to Norway during the last few months come from countries where the culture is quite different from ours. Many have grown up in cultures where there is a higher acceptance of various kinds of sexual harassment of women in public places.”

Benedicte Bjørnland, Chief of the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST), recently spoke at the “People and Defense” (“Folk och Försvar“) conference in Sweden. “You cannot assume,” she said, “that new arrivals will automatically adapt to the values and rules of Norwegian society. Rapidly increasing immigration, especially from Muslim countries, can also bring other challenges in the long run. When a large number of asylum seekers descend on a local community, it can lead to unfortunate consequences.”

In Denmark, the state is permitted to compile statistics on the ethnicity of criminals, something Sweden stopped doing years ago. During the last ten years in Denmark, 615 people have been convicted of rape — of these, 212 were first- or second-generation immigrants. That number equals more than one third (34.5%) of all convicts, three times higher than the immigrants’ share of the population.

Gatestone Institute contacted one of Sweden’s best known criminologists, Professor Jerzy Sarnecki of Stockholm University. When asked if it were possible to get statistics that show if Muslims were over-represented in Sweden’s rape convictions, Professor Sarnecki replied: “We do not maintain statistics like that in Sweden.”

Sarnecki was asked then if the failure to have reliable statistics did not fuel rumors and prejudice.

“Yes,” he replied, “or it confirms them. I do not mind such knowledge coming to light. You cannot do something about a problem if you do not have the facts. It is of course possible to do studies by going in and reviewing the criminals, and asking them about their religion, but that has not been done in Sweden as far as I know.”

Professor Sarnecki confirmed that immigrants in Sweden convicted for virtually all types of crimes — sex crimes most of all — are represented in a proportion greater than their percentage of the population, as shown in 25 studies conducted between 1974 and 2005. The latest report was called “Crime among persons born in Sweden and abroad” (“Brottslighet bland personer födda i Sverige och i utlandet“). Sarnecki says that because the statistics are unequivocal, he believes further studies would be pointless.

Swedish men are outraged by the current debate. On social media, many say that they have been unfairly singled out — and most definitely do not want to be associated with men who commit gang rape.

From a sampling of social media posts and comments:

Conrad: “It makes me furious that feminists claim that I would behave like these barbarians, simply because we belong to the same gender.”

Fredrik: “I am not easily offended, but I am pissed off, sad and insulted that I am being lumped together with other men as a potential gang rapist. I have almost had a falling out with some of my female friends, after they have urged men on Facebook to ‘talk to each other’ to prevent rapes in the future. WTF? Do women believe that normal men talk to their friends about this? If I knew someone who had committed a rape, that bastard would immediately be reported to the police and then be left without a social network.”

Jan: “I do not want to be compared to these uncivilized ogres. Very offensive that feminist writers point the finger at an entire group for something very few have done. It is called collective punishment…”

Willy: “If one is to believe the arguments of feminist debaters about the rape attacks, there is only one solution: Exterminate all men.”

Lorentz: “The comparison with Swedish men is base and grotesque.”

Johan: “Swedish feminists live in one of the most gender-equal countries in the world. That balance is now tipping over, and Swedish women are no longer safe in the streets. So what are the feminists fighting for? The view of women? No, they are trying to kick the timid, equal Swedish men. Talk about denial and cowardice.”

Tommy: “This is obviously a problem we have had in the past, that good upbringing and gender equality have freed us from. But increased immigration, mostly by Muslim men, puts us back not to square one, but to square -500.”

Mathias: “I have been brought up to respect women. I would never ever lay hand on a woman or rape her. It is ingrained in my soul. It is our task as men to protect our women against the threat that they face.”

What Swedish politicians intend to do about the “Rapefugees” that are now in the country is anyone’s guess. Prime Minister Stefan Löfven’s only comment so far was:

“First, I want to say that I am very angry that young women cannot go to a music festival without being violated, sexually harassed and attacked. This is a very big problem to those affected, but also a democratic problem for our entire country and we should therefore not budge an inch. We should not close our eyes and look away. We should address such a serious problem.”

The Swedish people are still waiting to see where the Prime Minister will look.

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

Sweden Facing Another Migrant Invasion? One Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Sweden: March 2016 by Ingrid Carlqvist

  • Swedish law only allows the government to operate border controls six months at a time, and there is a two-week waiting period before the controls can be reinstated. The two-week lapse is scheduled for July 4-17; many fear that tens of thousands of migrants will seize the opportunity to enter Sweden during this time.

  • A new report on migrants in Sweden, based on interviews with 1,100 students in Stockholm (90% of respondents were Muslims) found that immigrant youths live in a different world from their Swedish peers. 83% of the girls are not allowed to have male friends, 62% of the boys are not allowed to have female friends.
  • After several sexual attacks on women in Östersund, the local police issued a warning that women are not safe outdoors after dark. Since February 20, eight women have been sexually assaulted or raped in the town.
  • A bus driver was suspended from work after sharing posts on Facebook that were critical of immigration. A wave of public criticism of the bus company then led them to reverse the decision. The company admitted that the driver had never treated anyone badly.
  • The Swedish Security Service has identified at least 60 asylum seekers as terrorists and a threat to the country. However, the Immigration Service refuses to deport them.

In early March, the Swedish government announced that the country’s tighter border controls at the Öresund Bridge might remain in place for the foreseeable future, and that they may even become permanent. The problem, however, is that this summer, a two-week lapse will occur. According to the current law, the government can only operate border controls six months at a time, and there is a two week waiting period before the controls can be reinstated. The gap will occur July 4-17, right in the middle of the European vacation period. Many people fear that tens of thousands of migrants will seize the opportunity to enter Sweden during this time. When the migration wave peaked in the fall of 2015, Sweden received 9,000 migrants per week. So far this year, the number has been steady at 600-700 per week.

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven recently stated: “The number of people coming to Sweden has decreased dramatically. More are applying for asylum in the EU. That was the whole point.”

According to the government, the “public order and inner safety of Sweden” would still be at risk if the border and ID checks were to cease.

The Minister for Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, pointed out that sustaining the border controls sends an important signal to the half a million migrants now staying in Germany who have not sought asylum there. Neither minister mentioned anything, however, about how Sweden should avoid being flooded by these people during the two-week lapse in border controls.

March 2: An opinion poll by the Inizio polling institute, commissioned by the newspaper Aftonbladet, showed that 46% of Swedish women feel unsafe when they go out alone at night. Women who venture out despite their fears say they stay in constant contact with a friend or relative on their mobile phones while out at night.

March 4: At an asylum seekers residence in the small rural village of Storå, a 19-year-old man received a fatal knife wound to his throat. The police apprehended three suspects, all residents of the asylum seekers home, one of whom has since been remanded into custody. The murder caused great concern among the residents of the village. “I worry about everything. I don’t go out at night,” one woman told the public radio broadcaster, Sveriges Radio.

March 4: The Minister for Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, explained that asylum seekers whose applications are rejected will no longer be entitled to free housing and a daily cash allowance. “We must make sure they go back home,” was the stern message from the minister. Presently, about 4,000 people are affected by the new rules, and if the decision is implemented, 2,000 of them will lose their place at asylum seekers residences. “We need these places for others who are seeking asylum, and that means making sure that those who have been rejected move and go home again,” said Johansson. Before the decision can come into effect, the Council on Legislation must have its say.

March 5: A new report on the lifestyle of migrants, in relation to the predominantly Islamic concept of honor, and based on interviews with 1,100 young people attending schools in the southern suburbs of Stockholm (90% of respondents were Muslims), confirmed the findings of earlier studies — that immigrant youths live in a different world from their Swedish peers. 83% of the girls are not allowed to have male friends, 62% of the boys are not allowed to have female friends, 51% have had secret relationships, 30% cannot date a person of a different ethnicity, and 65% said that their parents had already spoken to them about marriage.

Amineh Kakabaveh, president of the organization that conducted the interviews, told the local paper Södra Sidan that it is all due to patriarchal structures: “But why should we accept this in Sweden where we have equal rights by law? It is troublesome that so little has happened since 2005 when we [last] investigated the subject.”

March 6: The British Daily Mail newspaper accused its Swedish counterpart Aftonbladet of having faked a news story about an attack on Moroccan street children at the Stockholm Central Railway Station on January 29. Despite Aftonbladet’s vague information about a “violent vigilante mob of 200 people” and the inability of police to verify that anything actually happened, the news traveled rapidly across the planet. Daily Mail reporter Sue Reid flew to Sweden to investigate the story, and found it very much blown out of proportion. “This raises the disturbing question as to whether the anti-migrant rampage ever took place in the way described, ” Reid wrote.

The article probably caused the Swedish embassy in London even greater concern — the embassy had already expressed discontent with the Daily Mail’s coverage of Sweden back in February, when the embassy claimed that the paper was “campaigning against Sweden and Swedish immigration policy,” thus conveying a negative image of the state of affairs in Sweden.

March 6: After several sexual attacks on women in Östersund, the local police issued a warning that women are not safe outdoors after dark. Since February 20, eight women have been sexually assaulted or raped in the town, hence this very unusual and drastic warning by the police. The decision was heavily criticized. Östersund mayor AnnSofie Andersson, for example, said that she was convinced the police and the municipality had other means at their disposal, and that the police “should have come to us first, before making a statement like this.” After the warning, more criminal complaints were lodged, and now the police are focusing on nine cases involving multiple perpetrators — who may all belong to the same group.

March 7: It was reported that the young Syrian who murdered 15-year-old Arminas Pileckas at the Göingeskolan school in Broby will not be charged with murder, or penalized in any way — even though the investigation shows that he committed the murder. The age of criminal responsibility in Sweden is 15, and the murderer claims he is 14. Arminas Pileckas, whose family immigrated to Sweden from Lithuania, was apparently very well-liked. His murder stirred up emotion, not least because it turned out that he had protected a girl in his class from the Syrian’s unwanted sexual advances. Aftonbladet interviewed the murderer’s father, who blamed the school for his son’s stabbing Arminas in the back:

“The school did nothing to help him or to restore his honor [because the victim interfered with his sexual advances]. Instead, my son had to see [Arminas] at school every day. It upset him very much.”

Left: According to Sweden’s current law, the government can only operate border controls six months at a time, and there is a two week waiting period before the controls can be reinstated. Right: Fifteen-year-old Arminas Pileckas was stabbed to death at school, but the young Syrian who murdered him will not be charged or penalized. The age of criminal responsibility in Sweden is 15, and the murderer claims he is 14. The murderer’s father blamed the school, saying they “did nothing to help him or to restore his honor [because the victim interfered with his sexual advances]. Instead, my son had to see [Arminas] at school every day. It upset him very much.”

March 7: A bus driver in Dalarna was suspended from work after sharing posts on Facebook that were critical of immigration. His employer claimed that there was concern that the bus driver would not treat the passengers equally. A wave of public criticism of the bus company then led them to reverse the decision, and the driver was allowed back to work the next day. The company admitted that the driver had never treated anyone badly, and conceded that Sweden, after all, does have constitutional freedom of speech.

March 7: The “unaccompanied refugee child” from Afghanistan, who on December 9, 2015 burned down an asylum seekers residence in Uppsala where he lived, was sentenced to juvenile detention. The fire caused over five million kronor ($615,000) in damage; the building was completely destroyed. The Afghan, who claims to be 16-years-old, had created havoc at the home even before the fire, by throwing objects at the staff, among other things. The night of the fire, he was not given permission to go out late at night to buy candy. Furious, he threatened to destroy the television, which prompted the staff to move it into an office. He then threatened to “destroy everything if I do not get my way.” Early the next morning, he set fire to the building; staff members and other residents fled for their lives.

March 9: Panicked shoppers at the Hallunda mall ran for cover when a masked burglar pointed an automatic weapon at them. A group of robbers drove a car into a jewelry store and were busy plundering it, when an elderly man tried to intervene: “I walked up to one of them, but he knocked me over and threatened me with a weapon,” the man told the news site, Nyheter Idag. Several shots were fired, but no one was injured. So far, there have been no arrests.

March 10: An Iraqi man with Swedish citizenship was sentenced to one year in prison for abusing his wife and child. The man tried to force his wife and daughter to wear a veil; when they refused, he beat them and threatened them with a knife.

March 10: Two asylum-seeker families were so dissatisfied with the housing they were offered, located on the upscale Nygatan street in central Norrköping, that they refused to get off the bus. Because of this, traffic on the street was blocked. The police told the local daily, Norrköpings Tidningar:

“We remain at the scene, because things are a little jumbled there right now. The families are displeased with the standard of the apartment, so they refused to get off the bus at first. We are talking to the families right now, and referring them to the Social Services office on Drottninggatan or the Immigration Service.”

March 10: The street artist Dan Park, who has been convicted of “hate speech” on several occasions, was arrested again. According to the prosecution, the alleged offenses this time were committed on social media in May, June and September 2015, when he “made condescending remarks against persons concerning their ethnicity.”

The Swedish justice system, which frequently lets rapists get away with a “slap on the wrist,” has let loose in its campaign against the artist and his provocative images of Roma, black people and Muslims. In October 2014, he was sentenced to five months in prison — for exhibiting his work at an art gallery.

The only Swedish artist that has stood up for Dan Park’s right to express himself as an artist is Lars Vilks, who is himself still living under constant threat of death after drawing the Muslim prophet Muhammad as a roundabout dog in 2007. There have been several foiled plots to kill Mr. Vilks, and in February 2015, he became the target of a terrorist attack in Copenhagen, in which two people were murdered. Vilks himself was unhurt – largely due to the resolute actions of his bodyguards.

In Denmark, Dan Park has received quite different treatment by the media and the establishment. The public television broadcaster Danmarks Radio recently aired an hour-long documentary on the artist, who himself feels that Sweden is applying the Nazi concept Entartete Kunst, (“Degenerate Art”), where the state imprisons artists who produce “objectionable” art.

March 10: During the last two years, the Swedish Security Service has identified at least 60 asylum seekers as terrorists and a threat to the country. However, the Immigration Service refuses to deport them — because that would put the terrorists in mortal danger: “We do not have the death penalty in Sweden, and we do not send people to their deaths,” Immigration Service Chief Operating Officer Mikael Ribbenvik told public television Sveriges Television.

The people in question are confirmed terrorists, some with connections to Islamist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS), war criminals, and spies working for foreign intelligence services.

March 12: Several parents whose children attend the Centralskolan school in Kristianstad are keeping their kids home, after the children were physically abused by newly-arrived migrant students. The children were beaten, kicked, choked, and exposed to other kinds of abuse at the school, which has recently accepted a large number of new migrant students. The headmaster and the teachers have urged the Swedish students to just “walk away” when fights or conflicts with the immigrant children start.

March 12: Several Swedes were evicted from their homes in Örebro, when the house they live in was sold and remade into an asylum seekers residence. The tenants were notified via a letter that said they were to vacate their apartments within three months – or the Enforcement Authority would have them evicted. “I have lived here for four years, paid my rent and everything. But now I am being thrown out,” a tenant, Roger Lund, told the local daily Nerikes Allehanda. The landlord says that the tenants have been living in the building on so-called “demolition contracts,” and therefore, their leases can be terminated on short notice.

March 14: The catastrophic slide that Swedish students have undergone in the Pisa tests (Programme for International Student Assessment, testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students) in the last few years is largely due to immigration from third world countries, according to a report by the National Agency for Education (Skolverket). About 85% of the drop in high school eligibility turns out to be due to an increasing number of students having arrived after the term has started, and thus having a poorer performance than the other students.

March 14: A 25-year-old immigrant from North Africa was sentenced to jail and deportation for raping a Swedish woman. The man was massaging the woman, when he suddenly started licking her ears, and then raped her. The rapist’s wife testified in court that her husband is a perfect gentleman.

During the trial, the rapist vehemently denied that he made any sexual advances towards the woman: “Only God knows how my DNA ended up in her ears,” he said.

March 14: A vigilante group calling themselves the Soldiers of Odin has started patrolling Swedish cities, with the declared goal of preventing rapes and other assaults. The police, who constantly complain that they are so understaffed they do not have the resources to be out on the streets helping the citizens, suddenly found the means to stop the group and search its members.

Soldiers of Odin was founded in 2015 in Finland, as a reaction to the country’s tenfold increase in immigration over the last year. Its founder, Mika Ranta, is said to have once belonged to a neo-Nazi organization. In a very short time, Soldiers of Odin has grown exponentially, and now has representatives in some 20 Swedish cities. In an interview with online news site Fria Tider, the group’s spokesman, Mikael Johansson, said that the members wished the police had the resources to do the “work” that they themselves are now doing.

March 17: A 19-year-old Somali was put on trial for a series of brutal muggings of elderly Swedes. Several of the victims were injured during the muggings. A 76-year-old woman was bitten on the hand. She had just been to the bank and had made a 10,000 kronor (about $1,100) withdrawal, without noticing that the thief was following her. When she went into a store and picked up her wallet, he tried to snatch it. When the woman would not let go, he bit her. The man was indicted on five counts of aggravated robbery – all of them against people aged 75-85. One of them lost 15,000 kronor ($1,700).

In the past, the Somali thief was convicted of aggravated robbery, aggravated theft, drug-related offenses, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. He is a Swedish citizen and lives on welfare.

March 18: The Australian TV show 60 minutes aired a program filmed when they visited the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby – and were attacked. News of the attack on the Australian film crew arrived several weeks earlier, but was ridiculed and questioned, as 60 minutes were guided in Rinkeby by the Swedish immigration critic Jan Sjunnesson, of the alternative media site Avpixlat. Now, everyone could see for themselves how the crew was attacked as soon as they got out of their car, and that the police refused to escort them because that might “provoke the residents in the area.”

March 18: The government announced that this fall, age-testing of “unaccompanied refugee children” will be implemented. For many years, Swedish politicians have claimed that it is impossible to perform such age-testing, a policy which has led to obviously grown men passing as children. Now,

March 21: Three immigrants from the Middle East were convicted of setting several fires targeting social workers in Botkyrka. The fires broke out on five different premises, all belonging to Social Services, and at a social worker’s private residence in Värmdö. The reason apparently was that a younger disabled brother of one of the accused had been taken into care by Social Services. The District Court ruled that the fires were part of a “planned and systematic campaign against Social Services in Botkyrka.” Two of the three were sentenced to 18 months in jail; one received probation.

March 22: In Sollefteå, the municipality suddenly discovered something that has been obvious to many Swedes for a long time: that adult asylum seekers claim to be “unaccompanied refugee children.” Three people were evicted from municipal housing for children when it became clear they were actually adults.

Majed Safaee, of the Sollefteå municipality, commented to Sveriges Television that “we’re not just talking about a couple of years here or there. We argue that these are adults who have no place in a home for unaccompanied children. Our reception operation needs to function, and it doesn’t if adults are living with children.”

The decision was immediately criticized by the reporter: “The damage is already done for the three refugee children. They were stripped of their trustees and lost their right to financial aid according to the Social Services Act, as soon as they were considered older than 18. Now they are on their own.”

March 23: The Immigration Service admitted, at least to some degree, that Christians are persecuted by Muslims at asylum seeker residences in Sweden. The Immigration Service said that something will be done about that — maybe. So far, the Immigration Service has refused to separate Christians and Muslims, because “segregated asylum houses would go against Swedish democratic values.”

But when the head of the Syrian-Orthodox church, Mor (S:t) Afrem Karim II, wrote a letter to the Swedish Minister for Migration and the Director General of the Immigration Service, pleading that Sweden offer special housing for Christians and other asylum seekers who are being threatened by Muslims, the answer was:

“We are currently examining the possibilities of offering a limited range of special housing for individuals that feel unsafe where they are staying due to the behavior of others. These facilities would be open to anyone in need of a safer place regardless of nationality or religious beliefs.”

March 23: In the heavily immigrant city of Malmö, several people were shot during the course of one evening, in incidents not thought to be related. In the Lindängen district, the police found two men shot and one severely beaten, in Rosengård, a cab driver reported that someone had fired shots at a person he had been sent to pick up, and later a man with gunshot wounds was found in an apartment in Augustenborg. Fortunately, everyone survived.

March 25: Dan Eliasson, the controversial National Police Chief, unilaterally decided to hire 700 new police officers, even though parliament has not yet decided to allocate funds for new recruits. For the highest police official in the country to take the law into his own hands is rather unorthodox, but Eliasson explained that he simply did not have time to wait for the go-ahead from the government, and that the need for additional staff was urgent:

“I have anticipated the parliament’s decision and asked the regions to hire more people, even if they do not have the money right now. I believe and hope that the parliament and the government realize the seriousness of the situation and give us the money after the fact.”

March 29: “Negro” is now officially a forbidden word in Sweden. In a short time span, several people have been convicted of “hate speech” after saying or writing this word. In March, a man in his thirties is sentenced to probation and will be made to undergo a Swedish Prison and Probation service treatment program. He is found guilty of “expressing himself in a derogatory manner and spreading contempt against this ethnic group” on the internet forum Flashback, where he used “terms such as negro and other derogatory remarks and comments.”

Since all users of the Flashback forum are anonymous, and the servers are located abroad, it is usually risk-free to write just about anything there. But in this case, the police had gotten an anonymous tip — which they processed with the utmost seriousness — about the man. They stormed the man’s apartment, and were lucky enough to find his computer turned on and logged on to Flashback under the username in question. The police seized the computer, memory cards, hard drives, a mobile phone and “propaganda” from the Sweden Democrats Party.

In October last year, three 15-year-old boys were convicted in the Court of Appeal for lower Norrland, after they had “uttered the word ‘negro’ several times” at school. In 2014, a 17-year-old girl was convicted of insulting a 29-year-old African, whom she called a negro. The fact that the insult came after the African called her and her friend “f**king Swedies” was not a mitigating circumstance, according to the court. Blacks are apparently allowed to call whites anything they choose; it is only a punishable offense when whites use supposedly inappropriate words against blacks.

March 29: A particularly brutal rape against a woman in Ludvika in August resulted in five Eritrean men being sentenced to eight months in prison, and one man, five years in prison. The woman was lured into an apartment in which there were eight men; one of them raped her while the others held her down. She escaped by jumping out a second story window. In December, a District Court acquitted two of the men, while five received ten months in prison for aggravated rape, and one, five years in prison. The prosecutor considered the men refugees, and therefore did not even press for deportation. The Court of Appeals concurred with the five-year sentence against the 21-year-old, but lowered the others’ sentences to eight months — for “neglecting to report a crime.”

March 30: Two men who participated in executions in Syria in 2013 were sentenced to life in prison by the Svea Court of Appeals, thereby confirming the conviction from the Gothenburg District Court from last year. One of the judges, Niklas Wågnert, explained to the Swedish public radio station, Sveriges Radio:

“The Court of Appeals also believes that the purpose of the murders was to instill serious fear in those who do not share the opinions of the accused, and that the deeds are such that they can be said to have done real damage to the state of Syria. This court shares the opinion of the District Court, that actions such as these warrant life in prison.”

The sentence is unusual — there has only been one such case in Sweden before, in which both the District and the Appeals courts have convicted someone of terrorist crimes; that was in 2005 and concerned financing attacks in Iraq.

March 30: Three African men were sentenced to four years in prison and deportation after gang-raping a Swedish woman in Ludvika in October 2015. The men followed the woman around town, and caught up with her in an alley where they formed a ring round her. They pulled down her underwear and held her down so they could rape her vaginally and anally. The rape lasted at least 15 minutes, and the woman cried for help the whole time. Finally, a Swedish man appeared at the scene, which caused the rapists scatter and run.

The police found the rapists by DNA-testing a number of suspects. Two of the men are from Eritrea, and have had permanent residency status in Sweden since 2015. The third man is an asylum seeker from Sudan. The court ruling states that “in light of the situation in Eritrea,” deportations to that country cannot be enforced — meaning that the rapists will remain in Sweden for the foreseeable future.

March 30: Another gang-rape took place aboard a ferry to Finland. In all, six young men are suspects in the case. Five of them have an immigrant background; the sixth has a Swedish mother and a Somali father.

The rape occurred when a large group of young people sailed on the M/S Galaxy to celebrate their high school graduation. Two of the accused rapists, now in custody, turned out to also be suspects in an earlier murder investigation. But because the prosecutor chose not to remand them into custody in connection with that investigation, they were free to go on the ferry trip, and apparently commit another serious crime.

Sweden Descends into Anarchy by Ingrid Carlqvist

  • “You have to understand that Swedes are really scared when an asylum house opens in their village. They can see what has happened in other places.” — Salesman for alarm systems.


  • Since Parliament decided in 1975 that Sweden should be multicultural and not Swedish, crime has exploded. Violent crime has increased by over 300% and rapes have increased by an unbelievable 1,472%.

  • Many Swedes see the mass immigration as a forced marriage: Sweden is forced to marry a man she did not choose, yet she is expected to love and honor him, even though he beats her and treats her badly. Her parents (the government) tell her to be warm and show solidarity with him.

  • “Are the State and I now in agreement that our mutual contract is being renegotiated?” — Alexandra von Schwerin, whose farm who was robbed three times. Police refused to help.

Once upon a time, there was a safe welfare state called Sweden, where people rarely locked their doors.

Now, this country is a night-watchman state — each man is on his own. When the Minister of Justice, Morgan Johansson, encourages breaking the law, it means opening the gates toanarchy. Mr. and Mrs. Swede have every reason to be worried, with the influx of 190,000 unskilled and unemployed migrants expected this year — equivalent to 2% of Sweden’s current population. The number is as if 6.4 million penniless migrants who did not speak English arrived in U.S. in one year, or 1.3 million in Britain.

And the Swedes are preparing: demand for firearms licenses is increasing; more and more Swedes are joining shooting clubs and starting vigilante groups. After a slight dip in 2014, the number of new gun permits has gone up significantly again this year. According to police statistics, there are 1,901,325 licensed guns, owned by 567,733 people, in Sweden. Add to this an unknown number of illegal weapons. To get a gun permit in Sweden, you need to be at least 18 years old; law-abiding; well-behaved, and have a hunting license or be a member of an approved shooting club. In 2014, 11,000 people got a hunting license: 10% more than the year before. One out of five was a woman.

“There is also a high demand for alarm systems right now,” says a salesman at one of the security companies in an interview with Gatestone.

“It is largely due to the turbulence we are seeing around the country at the moment.” People have lost confidence in the State, he added. “The police will not come anymore. Truck drivers say that when they see a thief emptying the fuel tank of their trucks, they run out with a baseball bat. It is no use calling the police, but if you hit the thief, you can at least prevent him from stealing more diesel. Many homeowners say the same thing: they sleep with a baseball bat under the bed. But this is risky: the police can then say you have been prepared to use force, and that might backfire on you.”

The salesman, who asked to remain anonymous, also spoke of Sweden’s many Facebook groups, in which people in different villages openly discuss how they intend to protect themselves: “Sometimes you get totally freaked out when you see what they are writing. But you have to understand that Swedes are really scared when an asylum house opens in their village. They can see what has happened in other places.”

One blog, detailing the consequences for the local population when an asylum facility opens, is aptly named Asylkaos (“Asylum Chaos”). There is a list of companies the reader is prompted to boycott; the blog claims these businesses encourage the transformation of Sweden to a multicultural society, and are therefore considered “hostile to Swedes.”

At another security company, a salesman said that every time the Immigration Service buys or rents a new housing facility, his firm is swamped with calls. “The next day,” he said, “half the village calls and wants to buy alarm systems.”

Ronny Fredriksson, spokesman of the security company Securitas, said that the demand for home alarm systems first exploded about six years ago, when many local police stations were shut down and police moved to the main towns. This, he said, could result in response times of several hours. “More and more people now employ the services of our security guards. Shopping malls and stores in the city come together and hire guards. We are kind of like the ‘local beat’ cops of old.”

Even though Securitas makes big money from the increased need for home security alarms and security guards, Fredriksson says they also are worried about the effect on society:

“The problem is that we too need the police. When our guards catch a burglar or a violent person, we call the police but the response times are often very long. Sometimes, the detainees get violent and quite rowdy. On occasion, the police have told us to release the person we have apprehended, if we have his identity, because they do not have a patrol nearby.”

Even before the massive influx of migrants in the fall of 2015, Swedes felt a need to protect themselves — and with good reason. Since the Parliament decided in 1975 that Sweden should be multicultural and not Swedish, crime has exploded. Violent crime has increased by more than 300%, and rapes have increased by an unbelievable 1,472%.

The politicians, however, ignore the people’s fear completely. It is never discussed. Instead, the people who express concern about what kind of country Sweden has become are accused of xenophobia and racism. Most likely, that is the reason more and more people are taking matters into their own hands, and protecting themselves and their families to the best of their ability.

All the same, some people do not settle for that. It seems some people are trying to stop mass immigration to Sweden. Almost every day there are reports of fires being set at asylum houses. So far, miraculously, no one has been hurt.

These fires are set not only by Swedes. On October 13, a 36-year-old woman living in Skellefteå was convicted of setting fire to the asylum facility in which she herself resided. The woman claimed she lit a candle and then fell asleep. Yet forensic evidence showed that a combustible fluid had been doused throughout the room, and the court found beyond a reasonable doubt that she herself had ignited the fire.

Left: The burned remains of a home for asylum seekers in Munkedal, Sweden, after it was torched last month. Right: There are nearly 2 million licensed guns, owned by 567,733 people, in Sweden.

The number of violent incidents at Sweden’s Immigration Service facilities is now sky-high. In 2013, according to Dispatch International, at least one incident happened every day. When Gatestone Institute recently acquired the incident list for January 1, 2014 through October 29, 2015, that number had risen to 2,177 incidents of threats, violence and brawls — on average, three per day.

The Swedish government, however, would apparently rather not talk about that. Foreign Minister Margot Wallström conceded, in an interview with the daily Dagens Nyheter that garnered international attention, that Sweden is, in fact, heading for a systemic breakdown:

“Most people seem to think we cannot maintain a system where perhaps 190,000 people will arrive every year. In the long run, our system will collapse. This welcome is not going to receive popular support. We want to give people who come here a worthy reception.”

Symptomatic of Swedish journalists, this statement was tucked away at the end of the article. The headline was about how the political party that is critical of immigration, the Sweden Democrats Party (Sverigedemokraterna), is responsible for the asylum-housing fires. But foreign media, such as The Daily Mail and Russia Today, picked up Wallström’s warning about a systemic collapse and ran it as the urgent news it actually is.

Nevertheless, in official Sweden, the imminent collapse is ignored. Instead, journalists exclusively focus on attacks by supposedly “racist” Swedes on refugee centers. To prevent new fires, the Immigration Service decided on October 28 that from now on, all asylum facilities would have secret addresses. And meager police resources will now be stretched even further — to protect asylum seekers. Police helicopters will even patrol refugee centers. But considering there are only five helicopters available, and that Sweden’s landmass is 407,340 square km (157,274 square miles), this gesture is effectively empty.

At a meeting with the Nordic Council in Reykjavik, Iceland, on October 27, Sweden’s Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven, was questioned by his Nordic colleagues about the situation in Sweden. Löfven had recently said that, “We should have the option of relocating people applying for asylum in Sweden to other EU-countries. Our ability, too, has a limit. We are facing a paradigm shift.” That comment led a representative of Finland’s Finns Party (Sannfinländarna) to wonder, with a hint of irony, how mass immigration to Sweden, which for years Swedish politicians have touted as being so profitable, has now suddenly become a burden.

Another Finns Party representative, Simon Elo, pointed out that the situation in Sweden is out of control. “Sweden has great abilities, but not even the Swedes have abilities that great,” Elo said.

When Löfven was asked how he is dealing with the real concerns and demands of the citizenry, his answer was laconic: “Of course I understand there is concern,” Löfven said. “It is not easy. But at the same time — there are 60 million people on the run. This is also about them being our fellow men, and I hope that viewpoint will prevail.”

The daily tabloid Expressen asked Löfven about the attacks on asylum facilities. He replied, “Our communities should not be characterized by threats and violence, they should be warm and show solidarity.”

As if such behavior can be forced.

Many Swedes see mass immigration as a forced marriage: Sweden is forced to marry a man she did not choose, yet she is expected to love and honor him even though he beats her and treats her badly. And on top of that, her parents (the government) tell her to be warm and show solidarity with him.

More and more Swedish commentators are now drawing the same conclusion: that Sweden is teetering on the brink of collapse. Editorial columnist Ivar Arpi of the daily Svenska Dagbladet,wrote an astonishing article on October 26, about a woman named Alexandra von Schwerin and her husband. The couple lives on the Skarhults Estate farm in Skåne in southern Sweden; they have been robbed three times. Most recently, they were robbed of a quad bike, a van and a car. When the police arrived, von Schwerin asked them what she should do. The police told her that they could not help her. “All our resources are on loan to the asylum reception center in Trelleborg and Malmö,” they said. “We are overloaded right now. So I suggest you get in touch with the vigilante group in Eslöv.”

What the police had called a “vigilante group” turned out to be a group of private business owners. In 2013, after being robbed more or less every night, they had decided to come together and start patrolling the area themselves. Currently, they pay a security firm to watch their facilities.

“On principal, I am totally against it,” von Schwerin said. “What are the people who cannot afford private security to do? They will be unprotected. I’m sure I will join, but very, very reluctantly. For the first time, I feel scared to live here now. Are the State and I now in agreement that our mutual contract is being renegotiated?”

Commenting on the police’s encouraging people to join vigilante groups, social commentator and former Refugee Ombudsman Merit Wager wrote:

“So, the Swedes are supposed to arrange and pay for their own and their families’ security and keep their farms from being subjected to theft, even though that has up to now been included in the social contract — for which we pay high taxes, to have police we can count on to protect us and apprehend criminals?! When did the social contract expire? October 2015? Without any notice of termination, since the tax-consuming party is not fulfilling its part of the deal? This should mean that our part of the deal – to pay taxes for public, joint services — has also become invalid? If the social contract is broken, it is broken. Then it is musical chairs (lawlessness, defenselessness, without protection), and that means that each and every one of us should pay less taxes.”

Ilan Sadé, lawyer and social commentator, wrote about the refugee chaos at Malmö Central Train Station on the blog Det Goda Samhället on October 27: “The authorities no longer honor the social contract.” He described four large signs on display around the station that read “Refugee? Welcome to Malmö!” in four different languages.

“It is unclear who the sender of the message is, or, for that matter, who is in charge of the reception facility — a number of barracks by the old post office in the inner harbor. Everything is utterly confusing. It could be Malmö City or the Immigration Service, but it might as well be ‘Refugees Welcome,’ or possibly a religious community. I think to myself that a government agency could not reasonably write like this, a correct and pertinent sign would say something like: ‘Asylum seekers are referred to the barracks for information and further transport.’ But I am probably wrong; Malmö City is the chief suspect communicant. … The signs in and around the Central Station are symptoms of something incredibly serious: Role confusion and the decay of the constitutional state. And thus, that our authorities no longer honor the social contract.”

In a post called Anarchy, blogger Johan Westerholm, who is a Social Democratic Party member and a critic of the government, wrote that the Minister for Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, is now urging authorities to “be pragmatic” about laws and regulations (concerning asylum housing for so-called unaccompanied refugee children). Westerholm stated that this is tantamount to the government “opening the gates to anarchy”:

“Our country is founded on law; Parliament legislates and the courts apply these. Morgan Johansson’s statement and his otherwise passive approach are testimony to how this, our kind of democracy, may fade into a memory very shortly. He now laid the first brick in the building of a state that rests on other principles. Anarchism.”

If anarchy really does break out, it would be good to remember that there are nearly two million licensed firearms in Sweden. Sweden’s shooting clubs have seen a surge in interest; many are welcoming a lot of new members lately.

Sweden Close to Collapse by Ingrid Carlqvist

  • If the wave of migrants keeps coming, in 10-15 years, Swedes will be a minority in their own country. That there is, in fact, an exchange of populations going on, should be clear in any sober assessment.

  • The final consequence of… Sweden’s immigration policy is that the economy will collapse — because who is going to pay for it all? And economic breakdowns, once they happen, always happen very fast.” — Lars Hedegaard.
  • In the last two weeks, more than 1,000 “unaccompanied refugee children” have arrived from Germany via ferry; more than half of them have now vanished and are listed as missing.
  • For the last few weeks, the central train station in Sweden’s third largest city, Malmö, has been overrun with migrants; the volunteers that for the first few days showed up with food, water and clothes now seem to have lost interest.
  • It will not be long until the Swedes realize that the state will not look after them. The country that just 20 years ago was considered one of the safest and most affluent in the world, is now in danger of becoming a failed state.

Sweden is fast approaching a complete collapse. More and more municipalities are raising the alarm that if the migrants keep coming at this pace, the government can no longer guarantee normal service to its citizens. In addition, ominous statements from government officials have left Swedes in fear of what tomorrow may bring. If the migrant wave keeps coming, in 10-15 years, Swedes will be a minority in their own country.

At a press conference October 9, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said that Sweden is in a state of crisis. However, when asked to clarify what he meant by this, Löfven was unable to produce a single coherent sentence.

Three ministers appeared by the Prime Minister’s side at the hastily summoned press conference, which came on the heels of an extraordinary government meeting. The purpose of the press conference seems to have been to convey two messages:

  1. To explain to the world and the Swedish people that Sweden is facing “one of the largest humanitarian efforts in Swedish history.”
  2. That there is no more housing available, and migrants should be prepared to live in tents.

During the question period after the ministers’ speeches, journalist Tomas Ramberg of Ekot Public Radio asked: “You say that Sweden is preparing for a crisis situation, what do you mean by those dramatic words?”

Stefan Löfven’s reply was incomprehensible:

“Yes, well first of all we, we are in the middle of what I mean seriously when I’m saying, when I express a, a big thank you to all the people doing such a great job, because it is a humanitarian effort, it’s just as the Minister for Justice and Migration just said. What we are actually doing is that we are saving lives when people who come from bombs, from, from killing, from oppression, their lives are shattered. We, we help them and that is a, that is a great humanitarian effort, and of course now that we can see the number of people who need it, that are seeking protection, then it is one of the greatest humanitarian efforts. And that we are facing a crisis situation, that is in part why I, we are outlining today that we are also preparing for a situation where we may need to house people in tents, because we stand up with the humanitarian refugee policy, right of asylum, but we can now also see that we cannot close our eyes to the fact that there are more coming than ever in such a short time, and we need to provide a roof over their heads. Then it is — other things may be required.”

However, the fact that the government is now talking about housing migrants in tents, may be a signal that Sweden, despite everything, may not want to be on the front lines of the “humanitarian” battle anymore, after all. The prospect of spending an ice-cold Swedish winter in a tent may make migrants choose countries other than Sweden. If not, a complete collapse of the Swedish system is imminent.

In 2014, the Danish historian and social commentator Lars Hedegaard prophetically remarked in the book “Farliga ord“(Dangerous Words), that the economic breakdown of a nation always happens quickly and unexpectedly:

“If there is any lesson to be drawn from history, it is that what you do not think will happen, does. Time and again. The final consequence of the West and, above all, Sweden’s immigration policy is that the economy will collapse — because who is going to pay for it all? And economic breakdowns, once they happen, always happen very fast.”

Right now, the Swedish government is borrowing money abroad to pay for immigration. But that amount is not enough. On October 8, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKL) warned that municipalities need to increase the tax rate by 2%. The average municipal income tax is already 32%, on top of which many Swedes also pay a federal income tax. A 2% rise in the tax rate would mean 15,000 kronor ($1,825) more in taxes each year for the average household.

High-ranking politicians and officials are also saying the situation is extremely grim. On October 1, Minister for Home Affairs Anders Ygeman said that the current wave of immigrants will lead to “huge economic strains;” and a few days later Immigration Service Director General Anders Danielsson explained that “within the framework of the system we all know, we are now approaching the end of the road.” Statements such as these have never been heard before in Sweden, especially in connection with the “sacred” issue of migration. Until now, Swedes have perpetually been told that we live in a rich country that has no problem handling all asylum seekers who want to come here.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven (left) said last week that Sweden is in a state of crisis. Pictured at right, the results of rioting in a Stockholm suburb, December 2014.

In the shadow the 1.5 million migrants expected to arrive this year in Germany, the EU’s largest country (population 81 million), migrants are also pouring into a rather smaller Sweden. Geographically Sweden is large, but consists mainly of forests and wilderness, and fewer than 10 million people live in the country. Until 2010, Sweden took in about 25,000 migrants a year. However, in 2010, then Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt made a deal with pro-immigration Green Party, (Miljöpartiet) — by his own admission to punish voters for allowing the anti-mass-immigration Sweden Democrats party (Sverigedemokraterna) into parliament.

Reinfeldt’s deal opened the immigration floodgates. In 2014, 81,000 people sought asylum in Sweden; and 33,500 were granted asylum. However, as many of the immigrants subsequently brought over their relatives, that figure substantially increased. Last year, 110,000 people were granted residency status in Sweden. One should add to this figure an unknown number of illegal aliens.

There is now talk of 180,000 asylum seekers coming to Sweden in 2015. That number is more than twice as many as the year before. If half of them are granted asylum, and they each bring over three relatives, we are talking about 270,000 new immigrants to Sweden — within one year. Over 8000 people arrived just last week, 1,716 of whom were so-called “unaccompanied refugee children.”

Swedes who only follow the mainstream media get the impression that all the migrants arriving are war refugees from Syria, but the number of Syrians is actually less than half of the total: 2,864 people last week claimed to be from Syria. 1,861 claimed to be from Iraq, and 1,820 from Afghanistan. Clearly, many people from countries that are not at war are taking their chances and applying for asylum in Sweden; but this is something about which the mainstream media does not see fit to inform its followers.

That there is an exchange of populations going on, should be clear in any sober assessment. The Swedish economist Tino Sanandaji (of Iranian-Kurdish descent, and therefore tougher than most Swedes, who, if they criticize the immigration policy, are immediately accused of racism) writes on his blog that Swedes could soon be in the minority in their own country:

“1,000-1,500 asylum seekers a day for 15 years equals 5.5 to 8.2 million asylum seekers. At the end of 2014, the Statistical Central Bureau, SCB, calculated that 21.5% of the Swedish population were of foreign descent: 2.1 million, out of 9.7 million. The number of people of Swedish descent — born in Sweden with two parents born in Sweden — has been stable at about 7.7 million and is expected to remain stable or increase slightly due to birth surplus. If those of foreign descent increase their number by about 5.6 million, they will become the majority.”

One of the municipalities that has been flooded with migrants is Trelleborg (population 43,000), located on Sweden’s southernmost coast. Over 100 “unaccompanied refugee children” arrive from Germany via ferry on a typical day. During the last two weeks, more than 1000 such youths have been registered; more than half of them have now vanished and are listed as missing. No one knows why, or where they have gone. Add to this 13,000 adult asylum seekers.

Impromptu temporary lodgings have been created in sports centers, ice rinks, and at the Sturup airport hotel, to name a few.

Trelleborg has written a desperate letter of appeal for help to the government, just as, a few weeks ago, the Örkelljunga municipality did in vain. The mayor and the Municipal Director of Trelleborg, who signed the letter on October 1, wrote:

“In the past, many asylum seekers have taken the route through Denmark to Malmö, but this changed about two weeks ago. From September 10 until the morning of October 1, 14,100 asylum seekers arrived in Trelleborg by ferry. There is no indication that the pace is slowing; if anything it is continuously increasing. On Tuesday, September 22, Trelleborg received word from the Immigration Service that the municipality where children and young people arrive is by law the authority that is required to provide housing, care and living expenses, until such time as the Immigration Service decides upon a designated municipality. … Trelleborg has quickly ended up in a situation where the regular services to the community are at great risk of being affected. … By writing this letter, we would like to bring to your attention the enormous strain we now find ourselves under.”

Apparently, the Minister for Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, has since been in contact with Trelleborg’s mayor via telephone to discuss possible solutions. On October 9, the Immigration Service decided that Trelleborg should be exempt as a designated municipality for unaccompanied children. However, it is unclear how this will alleviate Trelleborg’s plight as far as the new arrivals go. The only concrete help so far has come from some of the neighboring municipalities, who have opened up facilities to house some of the Trelleborg migrants.

Malmö, about 18 miles from Trelleborg, is also in dire straits. For the last few weeks, the central train station in Sweden’s third largest city has been overrun with migrants, and the volunteers that showed up for the first few days with food, water and clothes now seem to have lost interest. The daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet summed up the desperate situation in Malmö, where even the city’s empty jail was considered (and rejected) as possible housing for refugee children. It now looks more like a possibility for adult refugees.

The Social Democratic mayor of Filipstad, Per Gruvberger, also recently raised the alarm that his municipality of 6,000 people will not be able to provide schooling and childcare for the 1,100 asylum seekers now assigned to his municipality.

The reply of the Minister for Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, to this cry for help was: “If need be, Filipstad will just have to expand its operations.”

This insensitive statement from Johansson caused the Mayor of neighboring Årjäng, Daniel Schützer, to go ballistic. He wrote about his fellow party member on Facebook:

“Pardon my French, but Morgan Johansson is totally f—ing stupid. ‘Expand,’ he says. It is not f—ing bricks and planks that we are lacking, it is teachers!!!!”

The Immigration Service, which is tasked with reviewing the asylum seekers’ reasons for immigrating, is understandably swamped with work. Even before the latest “refugee crisis” — and despite 1,200 new employees being hired last year — its staff is struggling. The employees’ union is now raising the alarm, concerning more and more incidents of violence, vandalism and suicide attempts — this year (up to August), 1,021 such incidents were reported.

“The work situation for the entire authority is very strained. The pressure is enormous. The work environment has deteriorated severely,” said Sanna Norblad, local chairperson of the ST union, to daily Norrköpings Tidningar.

While all this plays out, large portions of the Swedish people watch in horror from the sidelines and wonder when the unavoidable collapse will occur. At the same time, a surprisingly large portion of the citizenry still overconfidently believe that “Daddy State” will make everything all right. This a very Swedish view, like the wishes of children, that Peter Santesson, head of polling institute Demoskop, wrote about on the website Dagens Opinion. Santesson states that the Swedes have an unusually high level of trust in the social order, and that they are convinced that “somewhere higher up, there is always someone smarter and more informed, taking responsibility and making sure everything works.” If the government officials turn out to be incapable of handling the refugee chaos they themselves have created, it could be disastrous. Santesson continues,

“Responsible decision makers need to ponder the trust the people have now bestowed on them, and they need to handle this trust with care in this difficult crisis. If the people’s confidence is betrayed by them turning out not to be able to handle the situation – if ‘Sweden’ turns out to be insufficient as a miracle cure and the crisis becomes too much to handle — the outcome could be political and social consequences reaching far beyond the issue of immigration.”

The blogger Johan Westerholm, a Social Democrat who is critical of the government, points out in an October 7 titled “System infarction in the Immigration System,” that in addition to those who are already in Sweden, we need to add those who are not granted asylum in Norway and Finland, and will therefore be sent back to the last country they were in — Sweden. Considering that Finland rejects 60% of asylum applications, it is fair to assume that during the coming weeks, the chaos will only escalate.

Westerholm writes that the situation in Malmö is “out of control,” and states that we do not have any idea who those arriving in Sweden are:

“A very large group of administrators [at the Immigration Service] do not even know the designated terror organizations, and then there are the sympathizers — people who, on principal, would never file a report to the Immigration Service security department, for ideological reasons. A large group consists of those who are scared into silence. In an organization characterized by fear and stress, to do nothing is a surefire way to keep your job. If a report of suspicion is filed anyway, typically nothing happens. If the life and health of the terrorist is threatened, as is often the situation, the person gets to stay. Initially he is given a temporary residence permit, but in practice, this turns out to be permanent.”

The 152 asylum seekers reported to the Security Service so far this year as possible threats to national security, are thus most likely just the tip of the iceberg.

The Swedes who have already lost faith in the authorities and the politicians are now preparing for the unthinkable — that their once so secure society is about to collapse. On the website 72timmar.se, the Civil Contingencies Agency informs the public on “our five most basic needs: Water, food, heat, sleep and security.” The readers are told to keep water and canned goods at home, and make sure they can stay warm.

“Prepping” is becoming more common in Sweden. Last summer, the daily Svenska Dagbladet ran a story on the first Swedish online store for preppers, and that interest was huge. According to the polling institute Sifo, until recently, seven out of ten Swedes have been completely unprepared for a crisis that knocks out the power supply and thereby the infrastructure. The owner of the online store, Fredrik Qvarnström, told the paper that, in his estimation, the Swedes are the worlds most poorly prepared for a crisis:

“There is lot of talk about the greenhouse effect and economic crisis. People seem to be aware that there are problems, but I do not think they know how vulnerable we really are. We rely on the state to take care of us, as it has in the past.”

It will not be long until the Swedes realize that the state will not look after them. The country that just 20 years ago was considered one of the safest and most affluent in the world, is now in danger of becoming a failed state.

Strategic Outlook for Saudi Arabia and Iran by Shmuel Bar

  • In Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman’s “Vision 2030” is totally identified with his leadership. If it succeeds, he will harvest the praise; on the other hand, many in the Saudi elite will latch on to any sign of failure of his policies in order to block his ambitions.

  • Mohammad bin Salman’s social-political agenda to broaden the power base of the regime to include the young and educated — and to a great extent relatively secular or moderate — will certainly be seen by the Wahhabi clerics and the tribal social conservatives as geared towards reducing their control over the populace and hence their weight in the elite.
  • Another serious risk is that the economic plan entails reducing the Saudi welfare state. The economic and social fallout of weaning the Saudis away from entitlements will be exploited by domestic opposition elements and by Iran.
  • In Iran, the electoral process within the Assembly showed what was not evident during the parliamentary elections held in February, namely that even a formal preeminence of moderates does not and cannot influence the decision making of the Iranian regime and that Khamenei succeeds to pull the strings despite seemingly democratic procedures.
  • After having won the chairmanship of the Assembly, Jannati delivered a speech demanding total loyalty to Khamenei, which can be considered as targeting the moderates.

Following the announcement of Saudi Arabia’s “Vision 2030” Economic Plan by Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman on April 25, King Salman announced a reshuffling of the government. The reshuffling was clearly orchestrated by the Deputy Crown Prince and reflects his agenda. This shuffle probably is not the last word even in the near term; the changes in the government strengthen the political position of Mohammad bin Salman, because the new ministers owe him their posts, and through them he will strengthen his hold on the levers of government, especially in the economic sphere. His next step may be to move to neutralize Prince Mitab bin Abdullah, the minister in charge of the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) and a close ally of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef. He could do this by absorbing SANG into the Ministry of Defense.

Such a step would probably not sit well with many of the members of the royal family; however, if Mohammad bin Salman takes such a step, it will only be with the consent of his father, King Salman, and none would actively oppose him. Such a step would have significant ripple effects; international influence in Saudi Arabia has focused for decades on acquiring sectorial influence in the various centers of power of the Kingdom – the different factions of the royal family, the business sector, the army, the SANG etc. The continuing concentration of power in the hands of Mohammad bin Salman will reduce the political relevance of many of these assets of international players and they will be obliged to restructure their connections and sources of information on the politics and economic decision making of the Kingdom.

Farther down the road — in our assessment not in the short term — King Salman may appoint his son to the position of Prime Minister – a title that he presently holds himself. Such a promotion would pave the way for Mohammad bin Salman to depose the Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Nayef, to be appointed as the next Crown Prince and to succeed his father. A possibility exists — though in our assessment it is not likely in the near future — that the King will even abdicate and pass the reins of the Kingdom to his son after he has been duly appointed as Crown Prince. These scenarios will be a disappointment to policy-shapers in Washington who prefer — or at least feel more comfortable with Mohammad bin Nayef. This too will call for a significant shift in the international disposition towards the Saudi regime; development of channels of influence with Mohammad bin Salman and his confidantes, adapting to a new and unfamiliar paradigm of decision-making in the Kingdom and coping with Mohammad bin Salman’s not-typically-Saudi regional policies towards Iran and other threats.

Mohammad bin Salman’s “Vision 2030” is totally identified with his leadership. If it succeeds, he will harvest the praise; on the other hand, many in the Saudi elite will latch on to any sign of failure of his policies in order to block his ambitions. However, none of them will actively attempt to disrupt Mohammad bin Salman’s plans; such a power struggle could precipitate the end of the rule of the al-Saud family and the very existence of the Saudi state, and they are aware that either they “hang together or they hang separately”. The risks to the regime from the economic reform process, however, do not necessarily come from proactive efforts to disrupt it. Mohammad bin Salman’s social-political agenda to broaden the power base of the regime to include the young and educated — and to a great extent relatively secular or moderate — will certainly be seen by the Wahhabi clerics and the tribal social conservatives as geared towards reducing their control over the populace and hence their weight in the elite. Another serious risk is that the economic plan entails reducing the Saudi welfare state. The economic and social fallout of weaning the Saudis off entitlements will be exploited by domestic opposition elements and by Iran.

Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 7, 2015. (Image source: U.S. State Department)

The changes in the Saudi Oil Ministry reflect Mohammad bin Salman’s strategic policy of using Saudi oil to minimize Iran’s economic and political profits from the lifting of sanctions, even at the expense of Saudi profit from its oil. This policy has broad support in the Saudi elite, with the possible exception of some of the government oil bureaucracy and the oil-related business community. But the latter do not have the power to derail the regime’s priorities in this regard. Therefore, we are likely to see a continuation of the Saudi policy of high production, willingness to offer attractive deals in order to undercut Iranian overtures to existing Saudi markets, and a high level of sensitivity to any threats to the oil industry. The chances of Iranian retaliation for the Saudi economic warfare are high. These could take the shape of cyber-attacks on installations inside Saudi Arabia, or terrorist attacks (including rocket attacks) against pipelines, refineries and other installations, and even attacks – without taking responsibility — on Saudi oil shipping inside the Persian Gulf or — more likely further away from the theater. Such attacks may normally be seen as providing Iran plausible deniability from the point of view of international law, but they will be attributed to Iran by the Saudi regime, that will see itself as obliged to react. Therefore, in the current state of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and assuming that the chances of rapprochement are slim, the chances of actual limited military conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia remain.

* * *

The Islamic State has come under increasing military pressure in both Iraq and Syria in recent weeks, and it is likely to lose territory. Yet this will not make Iraq more united or stable, nor will it bring the civil war in Syria any closer to an end. Iran’s influence in Iraq will grow, while the Sunnis will see the US as Iran’s enabler. The Islamic State will try to respond to its losses by launching major terror attacks in the West. The Islamic State lacks the manpower to defend all the Iraqi and Syrian territory it has occupied since 2014. Consequently, its strategy consists first and foremost of defending strategically or symbolically important assets, primarily al-Raqqah, Fallujah and Mosul, as well as key supply routes. In addition, it is compensating for its defeats by carrying out lethal terror attacks in Syria and Iraq in order to demonstrate that while these regimes can, with foreign backing, regain territory, they cannot defend their citizens.

The military successes against the Islamic State will entail a number of long-range problematic political implications: exacerbation of the Sunni-Shiite conflict in Iraq and in the region in general, strengthening Iranian influence on the back of American military power, increased animosity towards the US, and widening the gap between the Baghdad government and the Kurds. The Islamic State will eventually be pushed out of Fallujah, thanks to the American support. Once the Islamic State is pushed out of Fallujah and perhaps out of Mosul, Shiite militias will move in to exact their revenge. Fallujah will again be a fertile ground for Sunni radicalism and a new Sunni insurgency in the area is almost inevitable; the Sunni populace will probably rebel again under some successor of the Islamic State and Fallujah will have to be “liberated” again. Furthermore, the American airstrikes in support of the Shiite ground offensive will strengthen the image of the US as enabler of the Iranian takeover of Iraq and as responsible for Shiite atrocities. Atrocities committed in Fallujah by the Shiite militias under American auspices will give pause to the plans for initiating an offensive on Mosul.

The Iraqi political system which the Americans constructed is on the verge of final collapse. The stalemate over the election of a new cabinet and “popular” demonstrations staged by Muqtada al-Sadr are indicative of the inherent failure of the Iraqi political system. While al-Sadr had proven that he can paralyze the government and the Parliament, he cannot become the solution. He has helped to demolish an already dysfunctional political system, but his sources of political influence draw on the very factors that made that system dysfunctional: sectarianism, a politicized military, use of “popular” violence to challenge democratic procedures, involvement of religious authorities in the democratic process, involvement of external actors (particularly Iran) and the implicit threat of armed militias. Since the current crisis derives from the power struggle within the Shiite community, it will hinge to a great degree on Iran. It may escalate to a Shiite civil war, and such a scenario would probably draw Iran to intervene directly, or to encourage a Shiite military commander to stage a coup and establish military rule, then pledge his allegiance to Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei. We assess that the US, under the current administration, would probably acquiesce to “Pax Iranica” in Iraq, but the more influence any settlement would accord Iran, the more it would be unacceptable to the Gulf States, and they would use their influence with the Sunnis and the Kurds to block it, inter alia, by increasing support of radical Sunni groups in the country.

The cause of Kurdish independence is gaining momentum; all the Kurdish factions seem to be dedicated to holding a referendum on Kurdish independence before the elections in the US in order to create a fait accompli for the next administration. The issue of independence, however, is linked to the demand of the new PUK-Gorran alliance for parliamentary elections and for the inclusion of mixed Arab-Kurdish areas that the Peshmerga seized from the Islamic State in those elections and in the independence referendum. (Foremost of these areas are the oil-rich area of Kirkuk, the provinces of Nineveh, Diyala, and Salah ad-Din and the regional capital of Mosul that is still in the hands of the Islamic State). If the Kurdish Region succeeds in annexing these areas, it will also signify a watershed event in the process of the breakup of Iraq.

Turkey and Iran will both oppose these plans and the current US administration will not lend its support to a move that, in essence, proves the failure of its Iraq policy and signals the breakup of Iraq. Specifically, the prize of Kirkuk for the Kurdish state would be prodigious; the Baghdad government has halted the export of oil produced by its oil company in Kirkuk to Turkey in retaliation for the KRG’s independent oil exports. If Kirkuk Province joins the Kurdish Region, the KRG would presumably be able to take control of Kirkuk’s oil and resume its export to Turkey or — if the PUK-Gorran alliance comes to power in the KRG — to opt for the Iranian offer of export through Iran to the Persian Gulf.

Turkey views the Raqqa offensive in Syria with great concern. The American connection with the Kurdish YPG, which is viewed in Ankara as an extension of the PKK, is seen as yet another indication of the US inching towards support of an independent Kurdistan — the chronic nightmare of Turkey. Furthermore, if the Islamic State is pushed out of al-Raqqa and surrounding areas by the YPG, these areas will come under the control of Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava). Even before such a scenario emerges, the Islamic State’s priority of defending its regional capital, Raqqa will probably bring it to redeploy its forces now deployed in the Jarablus-Azaz Corridor, the stretch of land along the Syrian-Turkish border which separates the eastern Kurdish territory from the western enclave around the town of Afrin, north of Aleppo. The withdrawal of Islamic State forces from this corridor would tempt the YPG to launch an offensive westward from Jarablus in order to link up with the Afrin enclave. Such a prize would be a far greater achievement for the YPG than the capture of the non-Kurdish Raqqa area, and it would probably prefer it. If the YPG indeed takes such a step, it is likely to precipitate Turkish intervention, turning Turkey — a NATO member — into an active participant in the Syrian civil war against a party that is allied with both the US and Russia.

* * *

In Iran, Despite the hopes of the moderate camp, the hardliner 90-year-old Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati was elected (May 24) as head of the Assembly of Experts, after having gained 55 of 88 votes. This nomination does not bode well for President Rouhani’s future, should he insist on implementing deeper liberalizing reforms.

More than anything else, Ayatollah Jannati’s election highlights the Supreme leader’s grip on power. Ayatollah Khamenei did his best to help Jannati’s election by delivering his directives to some members of the Assembly. The electoral process within the Assembly showed what was not evident during the parliamentary elections held in February, namely that even a formal preeminence of moderates does not and cannot influence the decision making of the Iranian regime, and that Khamenei pulls the strings despite seemingly democratic procedures. The Assembly of Experts is rather formal and ceremonial body, unlike the Majles, however its role might become crucial at some circumstances, should the Assembly be summoned to nominate the following leader in the event of Khamenei’s death.

Ahmad Jannati, is important by virtue of what he epitomizes as a symbol rather than by his current political capacity, which won’t persist long, given his age. He has been serving as secretary of the Guardian Council since 1992, and in this capacity was instrumental in consolidating Khamenei’s power and, in all elections, was responsible for weeding out “undesirable” candidates to the Majles and Assembly of Experts. After having won the chairmanship of the Assembly, Jannati delivered a speech demanding total loyalty to Khamenei, which can be considered as targeting the moderates. Jannati is not alone with this mindset: his respective first and second deputies are hardliners: Mohammad Kermani and Mahmoud Shahroudi. The latter served for many years as the head of the judiciary, is close to Khamenei and is mentioned as a potential successor to Khamenei. This casting of the Assembly of Experts highlights that Khamenei is preparing to guarantee his ideological legacy and the ideological continuity of the regime after his death.

The election of Jannati was even more conspicuous in the light of the corresponding withdrawal of the chief candidate of the moderates, who they had hoped would serve as an ally within the regime — former President Hashemi Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani decided to withdraw from the electoral competition under pressure by the hardliners, including attacks on his children, his daughter, Faezah and his son, Mehdi.

On May 28, Ali Larijani was elected as the speaker of the Majles for the third term. Larijani is considered a hardliner; for over 30 years, he has been a confidant of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. His brother Sadeq Larijani is chief of the judiciary, and his other brothers have played important roles in diplomacy and government affairs. A veteran of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Larijani is also the son of Grand Ayatollah Hashem Amoli and son-in-law to prominent Islamic ideologue Morteza Motahhari. The moderate conservative politician Ali Motahhari is his brother-in-law. Given this multifaceted background, he has been able to establish strong, longstanding ties with both the military and the clergy, and with different factions in the Majles, with the exception of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who became Larijani’s nemesis. During Ahmadinejad’s second term, Larijani openly confronted him.

By contrast, Larijani is considered close to President Hassan Rouhani. During the nuclear negotiations, Larijani contained anti-Rouhani moves in the legislature and got the Majles to ratify the agreement. However, it must be clear that he did this not because he is Rouhani’s ally, but because he was ordered to carry out this mission by the Supreme Leader. Hence, Larijani will remain supportive of Rouhani, but only on the condition that the latter complies with the wishes of the Supreme Leader. If Larijani decides to stand for office, he may leverage his position in the Majles and his status with the Supreme Leader to whittle away at Rouhani’s popularity.

In the meantime, the Majles will be more supportive of Rouhani. Out of the 80 Majles members who opposed the nuclear agreement, fewer than a dozen remain. None of them is high profile, and their low numbers prevent them from establishing a bloc of their own, as they did in the previous parliament. Instead, they will have to operate within a “Principlists” bloc that is dominated by more moderate “Principlist” figures. This means that the remaining hardliners will be less likely to stage the theatrics that were so successful in challenging the government during the last Majles, particularly through their repeated summoning of various ministers to answer questions; and the impeachment of the minister of science, technology and higher education. Their absence will lead to a calmer parliamentary environment, more focused on addressing the serious economic issues Iran faces such as unemployment, reform of the banking sector, and the steep economic slowdown. This notwithstanding, one should bear in mind that the above scenario is confined to the functioning of the Majles vis-à-vis Rouhani, whereas the real chances of success of his program depend on other foci of power.

Dr. Shmuel Bar is a senior research fellow at the Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy Studies at the Technion in Haifa, Israel, and a veteran of Israel’s intelligence community.

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