refugees starting walking at the Turkish border pic: NYTimes
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced today that he was going to open the border and allow the million-strong refugee population to leave Turkey, presumably for Europe. The 6 billion euros the European Union budgeted for paying off Turkey to not do exactly that is apparently already spent.
SvD writes that according to Doctors Without Borders, Turkey is currently harboring 3.6 million refugees, of which 365,000 come from countries other than Syria. Both Greece and Bulgaria share a border with Turkey, and there are Greek islands reachable by even a overweight and leaky rubber boat.
Minister for Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, seems unperturbed. In a comment, Johansson wrote that “We judge the risk for a new refugee crisis like the one in 2015 to be quite different this year. The situation in the EU and in Sweden is different. Sweden has another set of laws and it is harder for people to pass through Europe today. There are now many controls at the borders, and even in Sweden we have internal border controls that were put in place in 2015. The Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket) has an expanded preparedness responsibility, and the government is in close contact with them.”
Moderate party leader Ulf Kristersson was more practical, calling for immediate aid to Bulgaria and Greece for help in strengthening their border control. “There will be big consequences if Turkey decides to renege on the (EU-Turkey) agreement” he said. “We know that Sweden and a few other countries are the most vulnerable if there isn’t a functioning border, as a lot of people come here.”
Before money is sent to Bulgaria and Greece though, a more likely scenario is sending another multi-billion cheque to Turkey for their continued help in penning in refugees. Keeping an army in Syria is expensive, after all, which is what the EU’s cheque will help fund.
Reckless driver? Drunk driver? Repeat offender? The government today announced proposals to significantly increase the penalties for breaking traffic laws.
The maximum sentence for driving unlawfully and/or drunken driving is proposed to be raised from six months to one year. The maximum sentence for gross drunk driving is proposed to be changed from two years in jail to three.
Someone who repeatedly acts particularly recklessly in traffic can get a minimum sentence of 6 months or up to 5 years imprisonment. Recklessly can mean drunkenly, carelessly, and/or unlawfully.
In a written comment, Minister for Justice Morgan Johansson was positive to the proposals. “We cannot allow certain people to put others in danger again and again” (SvD.se/driving).
Johansson might have been referring to a certain case in Kramfors where a repeat offender has racked up 100 convictions for drunk driving, thievery, and threatening behaviour over the past thirty years. As one of his neighbours put it “He’s very shy when he’s sober, but when he’s under the influence he becomes rather a nasty person” (SVT.se/Karmfors).
The new laws are projected to come into effect in January, 2021.
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.
“The biggest problems in society today are both the shootings and the explosions.”
There aren’t many that would disagree with Minister for Home Affairs Mikael Damberg on this. Two women died this week, one shot at point blank range while out walking – and carrying her baby – and the other from shots fired from the street while she was in her home. These two outrageous incidents are only the latest. But the fact that the victims this week are women, and that they weren’t killed at the hands of a male acquaintance (like in the vast majority of cases), made for a barrage of tweets from the country’s politicians.
“Complete darkness,” chirped Center Party leader Annie Lööf, “criminals have lost all respect for human life.” “Only lame and disgusting monsters go after a new mother” tweeted a shocked, just shocked, Minister for Justice and Migration Morgan Johansson: “They will be hunted to the end of the world if needed.” And the Swedish Prime Minister was not late in chiming in. “This is an incomprehensibly evil action, that makes me and the whole country disgusted. This has no place in our society. We will steadfastly conquer these murderers.” It’s possible these statements of extreme indignation sounded better in Swedish, but they didn’t, really.
Since these are only the latest events in a rising level of violent crime, there have been a slew of suggestions for countering it over the last few years. “More police!” has been a recurring refrain, but this takes time and good will. Police in Sweden have traditionally been seen as only slightly better than old gum scraped off the bottom of your shoe. This attitude should perhaps be changed first, although there is no sign of this from the government.
Two steps that appear more likely to be implemented in the nearer future is a reduction in the number of hoops a police department must hop through to put up a surveillance camera, and an initiative to require registration of all new SIM card buyers. True to form, neither of these “quickest” measures are likely to be in place before well after the new year. If things continue as they’ve been going, 23 more people won’t live to see these measures enacted.
