Uncategorized Archives • Page 15 of 28 • SwedeInternational

11 Nov. – a name, a vote, and a meeting

can this wave be stopped?
pic: watersource.awa.asn.au

In the wake of the shooting and the explosion over the weekend, that the police now suspect are connected, there are several actions in the works: the police have labelled their response an “extraordinary operation” (särskilt händelse), the Moderate party has said they are behind the Sweden Democrats’ decision to call a vote of no confidence in Minister for Justice Morgan Johansson, and the Malmö police are organizing a special conference, with the local criminals.

Only the terrorist attack on the pedestrians on Drottninggatan in April of 2017, and the forest fires in the summer of 2018, have previously been classified as “extraordinary operations” by the police department. The current operation is being called Operation Rimfrost (hoarfrost in English), and allows the police department to make the decision-making process faster and increases their authority to reprioritize and move police forces around. “The number of persons in criminal networks shall be reduced by force” said Stefan Hector, chief of operations for NOA, the national operations division, “by which we mean arrests, charges and sentencing.” The police hope to seize more weapons and explosives as well. “In about 6 months we will have seen a difference” Hector predicted (SvD.se/rimfrost).

In related news, the Sweden Democrats have said they will be bringing a motion of no confidence in Minister for Justice Johansson to the floor at the party leader debate on Wednesday – and the Moderate party has said they will support it. Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the Sweden Democrats, declared that it was “obvious that the Minister for Justice, who in this case has the ultimate responsibility to handle this situation, does not understand its seriousness. He can’t handle it, and therefore parliament should in some way make clear its dissatisfaction with the work that is unfortunately not happening” (SR.se/Åkesson).

Moderate party leader Ulf Kristersson echoed his colleague. “It is right to direct a vote of no confidence in the Minister for Justice. For the last five years, he has been ultimately responsible for the situation we’ve arrived at in Sweden. It’s untenable. Either the minister does his job or he takes the consequences and resigns. We will be voting no confidence” (SR.se/Åkesson).

For a vote of no confidence to go through, at least 35 parliament members need to demand it. If a majority in parliament (175 members) vote yes, the minister in question must resign. So far, in Swedish history, there have only been nine – count ’em, nine – votes of no confidence. None of them has ever resulted in a minister’s resignation.

As far the other more right parties go, the Liberals have said they will not support a vote of no confidence, but that the government must “take vigorous measures against gangs.” The Christian Democrats haven’t yet commented. It is unlikely in the extreme that the more left Green or Center party will support it, altogether making the resignation of Johansson equally unlikely. The Moderate party’s youth wing, MuF, went its mother party one better and demanded a vote of no confidence in not just the Minister of Justice Johansson, but also on Minister for Home Affairs Mikael Damberg (DN.se/MuF). That one won’t be going anywhere, for the moment at least.

Meanwhile, the local police in Malmö have called a meeting for Tuesday. With the local criminals. The criminals that come don’t have to be the most violent ones, or the leaders – as long as they have legitimacy and that the others “listen when they talk” said Glen Sjögren, coordinator the “Stop Shooting” project (read more about the project here).

“We’re giving them a message – that we don’t want them to die and we don’t want them to kill someone. If they, or someone in their group, commit a crime involving lethal violence or explosives we’re going to focus on their whole group. If they want to leave their criminal life behind them, we’re ready to help them with that too” said Sjögren. “The goal is to stop the current crime wave and to prevent an escalation” (DN.se/slutaskjuta).

It seems like it’s all hands on deck, but whether or not talking leads to actions and then to an effect is anyone’s guess.

10 Nov. – 15 year old killed in Malmö

Welcome to Malmö
pic: liveablestreet.wordpress.com

The death of a 15 year old who was shot in Malmö yesterday evening has caused a minor uproar. The pizzeria where he was shot is in a central part of Malmö, Möllevångstorget. One other, slightly older boy was also shot and is in serious condition. As of yet, there is no formal idea of who might be responsible.

DN interviewed several people who came to light a candle in a show of sorrow at the pizzeria. One woman, named Johanna, didn’t want to say her last name or have her picture taken at the scene. “I feel a huge hopelessness for the children who grow up in this town” she said. “I’m so scared that this will feed anti-democratic sentiment.”

DN quotes another passer-by as well, a sixty year old man, who describes the latest development as a nightmare: “A country like Sweden should take care of its citizens, but then this happens. I’ve been on the other side myself, I lived in this world for almost four decades. This is just crazy. They’re children. What can a 15 year old have done to deserve this? It’s the older ones who are using the younger ones: It can’t be anything else. And this whole thing with explosions. It’s only a small number who deal in these kinds of things. It shouldn’t be so hard to figure out.”

Only two kilometers away, reports of an explosion were called in, close to the time of the shooting. The police are treating these incidents as unrelated, SvD reports. But “per capita,” Henrik Häggström, senior analyst at the Swedish Defense University (försvarshögskolan) said in an interview with TV4: “you have to go to Afghanistan to find a similar situation to the one in Sweden” (SvD.se/15).

The shooters were said to have fled the scene on bicycles – being, perhaps, too young to have a drivers license.

9 Nov. – Christian Democrats’ gather

Ebba Busch Thor at KD’s riksting
pic: expressen.se

The Liberal, Green, Center, Left and Moderate parties along with SD have all had their congresses and the turn has finally come for the Christian Democratic party (Kristdemokraterna) to have theirs, a riksting, now taking place in Umeå.

Since the election in September of last year, support for KD has taken a nosedive, from over 12 % to under 7%. Many have attributed the decrease to when it was revealed that their number one representative in EU, and big party name, Lars Adaktusson voted against pro-choice legislation at the EU – not just once, but repeatedly. Adaktusson’s excuse that he was actually only voting against other issues tacked onto the legislation, not against abortion per se, didn’t cut it with many voters. Their support decrease has also been attributed to KD’s strong support for asylum seekers’ ability to bring over their family members to Sweden (SvD.se/KD).

So far at the congress, Adaktusson has been switched out from his position as second vice chair (although he’ll still be a representative in parliament): They have maintained ever since the scandal came out that a woman’ right to choose has never, ever been a question. As far as refugees bringing over family members (familjåterförening), KD is now taking a harder line, saying that in order to bring family over, the person in Sweden must prove that they can support them economically .

New proposals discussed at the congress also include supporting a language test as well as a so called civics (samhällskunskap) test that need to be passed in order to qualify for permanent residency and/or citizenship. For many people, this is considered a completely unreasonable thing to ask of refugees: Among other reasons, many people believe that immigrants should not have to face a test that other people in the country have not had to face. Having to pass a language test is an old proposal that the Liberal party tried to get support for back in 2002, but which failed badly. One of the parties against the language test back then was the Christian Democrats, arguing that you didn’t need to speak Swedish to be a good citizen (SvD.se/language).

Times have clearly changed. In this round, Soheila Fors, a representative from the women’s caucus, argued that an immigrant can’t be successful, get a job, or learn what human rights or democracy is about if they can’t speak the language. “We get put into an aquarium” she argued “and are fed by welfare services” (DN.se/KD). In this vein, KD is also in favor of narrowing the right to have the services of a publicly financed interpreter after having lived five years in the country.

The congress continues on Sunday. A debate over allowing begging, as well as the final decisions regarding the above questions, is expected.

7 Nov. – Ersson: same question, same answer

what happens if you won’t put on your seatbelt
pic: traveller.com.au

Elin Ersson, the activist that stopped a plane from taking off in order to keep a man from being deported back to Afghanistan, was again convicted of breaking the law under the Aviation Act (luftfartslagen). As SvD’s legal commentator, Mårten Schulz, explains, someone who willfully or through gross negligence ignores the directions of an officer can be held responsible. The punishment for doing this, however, isn’t that much – about on par, Schulz says, with hopping the turnstile going into the subway. Ersson was fined 60 day-fines (dagsböter) for a total of 4200 kronor.

The Ersson case has had a couple twists and turns. Ersson boarded a plane in the summer of last year to stop the deportation of one man in particular, but it turned out that that particular man wasn’t on the flight. Another man, who Ersson didn’t know and whose case was unfamiliar to her, was on the plane being deported instead. Ersson decided to go through with her protest anyway, and refused to sit down so that the plane could taxi to takeoff. She was charged, and convicted last February, of not obeying the plane’s officers and sitting down.

However, in an investigation by Svenska Dagbladet, it came to light that one of the lay judges (nämndeman) in her case had called Ersson a criminal before the trial had even begun. Obviously, his judgement was totally compromised, and the trial had to be done over. (For more on the judicial process in Sweden, in particular about the Swedish system of lay judges, see this post.) The do-over trial has now been completed and the judgement remains the same: Ersson has again been found in breach of the Aviation Act.

The crime, however, is not actually in the Swedish penal code, and some commentators are making the argument that the verdict should be made more concrete than what is stated in the fuzzier Aviation Act (SvD.se/Ersson). Ersson’s sentence is based the judges’ understanding that while only the captain can make the decision that it is time to sit down and put your seatbelt on in preparation for takeoff, the cabin personnel in that case are acting as the messengers for the captain. Ersson claimed that she didn’t see the “put on your seatbelt” light, and that it was only the cabin personnel’s requests to do so. (The captain and the crew were not questioned in either trial.)

In addition, Ersson’s lawyer Thomas Fridh is also saying that not only didn’t she see the lamp, she never meant to break the law or to make a stand through civil disobedience – she was only protesting Swedish asylum policy. Thomas Fridh says that Ersson could not have foreseen how the law would be interpreted (Svd.se/Ersson2).

“We’re going to appeal” said Fridh. “If only to get some clarity on what the terms are if a similar action is under consideration” (Svd.se/Ersson2).

The cost for Ersson’s actions, according to the Swedish Prison and Probation Service, was around 240,000 kronor. Dagens Nyheter notes that both the man Ersson meant to save from deportation when she boarded the plane, and the man whose deportation Ersson ended up being arrested for by obstructing the plane’s operation, have since been deported.

Day-fines (dagsböter) are doled out as punishment for crimes that are more serious than speeding, but less serious than mandatory jail time. They’re factored by both the number of days and the income of the person being fined. 60 days isn’t that very long (dagsböter can go up to 150 days), and Ersson has little income – the court has leeway in setting an income marker and in this case set it at 70 kronor per day. 60 days, 70 kronor a day, makes 4200 kronor. Had Ersson had a much higher income, her fine would have been a lot higher, but could still have a length of 60 days. Day-fines are set in some European countries (Finland, Germany and Denmark, for example) but aren’t done in the US and only partially in the UK (thanks Wikipedia).

6 Nov. – Swedes still good at English

not as good as everyone thought, but still very good
pic: preply.com

It wasn’t first page news, but it was still in bold text in Svenska Dagbladet’s newspaper this morning – Swedes no longer best at English. In a survey run by EF, Education First, Sweden landed in second place this year, after the Netherlands. In the nine years since EF started the survey, Sweden has been in first place for 4 of those years (ef.se).

Is there a crisis? Nja. “Maybe some Swedes are taking English a little too much for granted because we’ve ranked so highly for a long time” said Malin Ankarberg, Education First’s country manager for Sweden. “I don’t think we should make a big thing out of this year’s results. We see a small step back, but maybe that’s necessary to get people to realize that we can do better.”

Education First, or EF as it is more commonly known, is an international company with offices in a dozen countries, and arranges language tours and courses as well as education exchanges. If you or someone you love wants to beef up their English, coincidentally, EF has a course just for you.

5 Nov. – Andersson eyes the surplus

This is twice in the same year the government surplus objective – aka överskottsmålet, is coming to the fore in news. The first time was only last August, when – “oops” – the National Debt Office was 6 billion kronor off estimating the government’s tax income: Suddenly the Social Democrats and Green parties had a lot less money to spend on fave projects than they thought. But due to the surplus (read about it here), Sweden still had funds in the bank if needed.

Now, however, Minister for Finance Magdalena Andersson is looking over at that surplus like it’s a dessert cart. Instead of a surplus objective, SvD reports, she’s advocating a budget “balance goal” – a balansmål. Instead of having a surplus, in case of a rainy day or financial downturn, the new goalpost would just be a balanced budget. The 16 billion kronor that would suddenly become available, could be used, she says, for things like infrastructure, the police force or health care.

The government surplus objective isn’t up for debate before 2024 – eons in political time – but Andersson is hoping for an earlier review date. The Left and Green parties are already on her side, but others are more wary. The mandatory surplus (which has already been cut down in size since the financial crisis of the 90s when it was first instituted) was put in place for a reason – as a safeguard for a time when the state’s finances might be truly desperate. Most analysts don’t think we’re there right now, so there’s no reason to use the surplus.

After all, as the Swedish saying goes “she who sets by, gets by” (hon som spar, har).

4 Nov. – first shot across the bow from Industri union

2020 negotiations begin, for painters and others
pic: måleriföretagen.se

Let the negotiations begin. The Industry Union (Industrifacket) came out today with a demand for a 3% salary increase on a one year contract on behalf of their union members. The response? “Where has the union been this fall?” wondered Peter Hidesten, executive director for Industry Employers, and pointed to the economic downturn underway in the steel and forest industries (DN.se/avtal).

The bid was the opening shot in the yearly negotiation process (avtalsrörelse) between employers and employees across the country. Industrifacket negotiates for 400,000 Swedish workers, a conglomeration of several different workers’ associations – IF Metall, GS, Livs, Unionen and Sveriges Ingenjörs – textile workers’ union, factory workers’ union, forest workers’ union, food industry workers’ union, “unionen” the white collar trade union workers and Sweden’s Engineers.

Peter Hidesten called the bid “completely unrealistic” considering the economic situation. “Instead, he added, it’s time to shift down on salary increases.” However, Marie Nilsson, chair of the metal workers’ union IF Metall, disagreed: “We believe that the raise corresponds well with a responsible salary increase. We’ve contributed to the strengthening industry’s competitiveness over the past few years, so it should be manageable.”

Industrifacket is the first out in the larger negotiation process that is fairly unique to Sweden. The yearly negotiations between employers and worker representatives has been key in preventing massive labor unrest for decades. Traditionally, what Industrifacket gets from the employers’ organization sets the number, or mark (industrimärket), for what other unions can negotiate for. This year, however, the Kommunal union decided not to be a part of Industrifacket’s bargaining, and will handle their own negotiations.

Kommunal, the Swedish Municipal Workers’ Union, speaks for over 500,000 employees at all levels – teachers, nurses, care workers, county administrative workers and more. They chose to not join the Industrifacket side of the table because Industri wouldn’t go along with asking for a higher salary increase for Kommunal members who work in the health, care, and school sectors.

Splitting the employee side of the negotiation force shocked a lot of people, and many thought Kommunal splitting off significantly weakened the employee-side’s bargaining position. Chairperson for Kommunal, Tobias Baudin, stated that he thought they’d do well by negotiating for themselves. “We’re big, strong, and pretty pissed off (Aftonbladet.se/avtal). Also the paper industry workers’ union Pappers, with 13,500 members, pulled out from the employee side, believing that they, too, would be better off negotiating for themselves.

In total, about 2.8 million workers are affected by negotiations that make up the 2020 bargaining period (ekonomifakta.se/avtal). The real negotiations begin soon after the new year.

3 Nov. – busy bomb squads

It’s difficult to get a good sense of the numbers of explosions that have occurred in Sweden over the past year. In August, SVT reported that there were 120 explosions to which the bomb squad was sent out between January and July of this year. After the three latest bombs in Malmö this weekend, DN is reporting 102 explosions where the bomb squad was sent in so far this year.

The one sure thing in all these numbers is that no other country in Europe has these kind of statistics. In fact, DN reports, experts are coming to Sweden to take a closer look at this development for themselves, and to think about how they can keep it from happening where they come from.

So far, there have not been large number of deaths and injuries from detonations, but there are concerns that as the bombs become more advanced and able to be set off from far away, via a mobile, for example, the number of casualties will rise. “Previously, these cases dealt with hand grenades, and there could be witnesses” said criminologist Amir Rostami to DN. “But now, when one can plant a bomb and set if off from a distance, it gets more complicated.” Very few of these crimes are solved – in many cases, material that could be used to identify the criminal parties is simply blown up.

It’s not just anybody doing this, but anybody can be hit” said one man to DN in regards to the bomb in Almgården early on Saturday. “I was sleeping with my kids, 11 and 4 years old, when the bomb went off. We all jumped up in our beds and for the rest of the night it was impossible to calm down.”

Police in the South Region have created a committee to examine the issue and to see how to infiltrate the groupings of people behind the bombings (sprängningskommission). Meanwhile, Veronica Truedsson and her family are pulling up stakes and leaving Malmö. “We’re scared to death of the escalating violence here” (DN.se/leavingMalmo).

2 Nov. – Left party wording raises questions

Left party grapples with honor violence
pic: futureswithoutviolence.org

The Left party began its congress this past Friday in Göteborg. Although the final decision on the wording of the party platform won’t be taken until May, suggestions for changes have been circulating in Left party circles for a while. One of the suggested changes has met with a lot of critique, also from Jonas Sjöstedt, the Left party’s leader.

In the platform suggestion in question, neither “honor based violence” (hedersvåld) nor “honor based oppression” (hedersförtryck) are mentioned. Instead, the issue is tucked into the larger section with the title Gender Power Hierarchy (könsmaktsordning) where it states “Disparagement takes different forms, and its legitimization can be more or less hidden by everything from the exercise of authority and honor-related concepts to social norms” (SvD.se/honor). The term “honor-related concepts” is a pretty heavily watered down variation on honor-based violence and oppression, people are saying.

The Left party has been accused of being soft on honor-based violence before. In August, representative Amineh Kakabaveh was forced out of (or stepped down from, depending on how you see it) the Left party. According to her, her party made it impossible for her to remain a representative by ignoring her at meetings: It was punishment for speaking out too strongly on women’s behalf, and for criticizing the party for not doing nearly enough to support women (see this post).

Similar critique is now being aimed at the party, and this time from another long-term party member, Jonas Lundgren. The phrase honor-related concepts “relativizes” honor based violence, he says. “It’s like trying to prettify the control and oppression that many suffer in honor’s name” (SvD.se/honor). “We have a feminist platform that declares that these questions are big and important. And yet, dammit, (lik förbannat) there have been people in central positions in the party that have questioned that analysis, wondering if it isn’t an instance of racism” (DN.se/honor).

“This was a mistake in the program” said Jonas Sjöstedt. “It’s likely that there will be rewrites, and the words honor-related concepts will be changed” said Hanna Cederin, the party program committee’s convener (DN.se/honor).

That sounds like an excellent idea.

(

31 Oct. – to be deported and yet not deported

scenes we won’t be seeing
pic: masterfile.com

In the spring of this year, Säpo, the Swedish security police, took 6 persons into custody claiming the right to do so under the Act on special alien control (lag om särskild utlänningskontroll). The six men are charged with being active in extremist Islamic circles, and are considered to be a threat to national security (DN.se/threat). Under this law, a person may be deported for these reasons. In order to do so, Säpo must ask the Migration Court (migrationsdomstolen) for permission.

Later this last summer, the Migration court agreed with Säpo’s reasoning, and agreed that they should be deported. (Not that they likely had so much to go on – for the court, the press, the police, as well as the persons charged, a lot of evidence is classified.) However, it wasn’t possible to put the deportation into effect because of the security situation in these persons’ countries. Both the persons in custody, and Säpo, appealed the decision, and it went to the government. Today, the government decided that yes, they should be deported – but they can’t be, because of another law: It is illegal to return or deport people to countries where they run the risk of the death penalty or of being tortured (SvD.se).

The Swedish justice system has no other alternative, in these circumstances, but to let these persons go free. They will be still suspect in Säpo’s eyes, and are are likely to be surveilled, but they are free to go back to their jobs – one as a school employee and others to their jobs as imams. Terror expert Magnus Ranstorp is quoted in DN as saying the government’s decision still sends a sharp signal: “They cannot get citizenship, and the day there is the possibility to deport them, they’ll be deported. They’ll have to report to the authorities and they won’t be able to leave the country. There will be severe limitations on what they can do.”