I remember that a decade ago people would try to gaslight you into thinking that there were no problems with migrants in Sweden.
"Our crime statistics are high because we changed how we count crimes!"
You would hear phrases like that. It was actually bizarre looking from the outside in how much denial there was about these problems. Maybe if it has started being addressed back then then it wouldn't have gotten as bad.
Sweden had a pretty weird situation 10-15 years ago. The two parties that were traditionally resisting too much immigration turned around (M and S). Probably because, like all European countries, Sweden needs immigrants to keep the demography sane.
Meanwhile a political party with a neo-nazi history caught the spotlight (SD), which made it even more difficult to criticize immigration.
It was like a perfect storm, making immigration a very difficult subject to have a moderate opinion about.
And the no-go zones were just fox news right-wing propaganda. Well, my Swedish friend drove me through one (daytime) two years ago.
Pretty significant cultural changes, like now in their hometown, there are separate swimming days for the sexes at the public pool. When I started going to Sweden 30 years ago, all the beaches were top-ional.
Things like, I think he called them the "bearded babies", which was a group of thousands of refugees who were obviously up to 30 years old, claiming they were 17, so they didn't need to provide any information and received preferential treatment.
It was enough to lead my die-hard liberal punk rock guitarist friend to start voting SD in last few elections. They were the only ones who would talk about the problems.
> commented Oliver, although the segment wasn’t even focused on immigrants and Sweden, a country whose crime rate has steadily declined since 2005
> Selin completed a study recently focusing on negative news reports about Sweden’s acceptance of refugees. It found numerous exaggerations and distortions, including false reports that Sharia law was predominant in parts of the country and that some immigrant-heavy neighborhoods were considered ‘no-go zones’ by the police.
That's because it's comprised of everything else, like shoplifting kids and gangs of bicycle-stealing thieves in student towns like Uppsala.
"Oh yippee, we had six hundred fewer cases of shoplifting and two hundred fewer cases of bicycle theft, and only two hundred more cases of deadly gun violence and one hundred more cases of deadly use of explosives -- minus eight hundred, plus three hundred, a net reduction of five hundred cases of crime!"
The only real numbers the article gives are
> About 62,000 people are linked to criminal networks in the country, police say.
which says... nothing? What does "linked to" mean? are those people that buy illicit drugs off the street? are they "linked to" a criminal organization?
> Last year, 363 recorded shootings led to 53 deaths across Sweden, according to police.
Absolute numbers, without per capita context (given above) this is not useful.
> In 2022, the gun murder rate in Stockholm was roughly 25 times higher than in London.
This is _gun_ murders specifically, but for all murders, London is comparable to Sweden overall (~1.3 per 100k population), I wasn't able to find numbers for Stockholm specifically, but yeah, if I die I die, I'm not sure I would particularly care whether it was due to a knife or a gun.
Overall, seems like another overblown narrative that doesn't reflect reality to me. Violent crime just doesn't seem to be trending upward in Sweden.
Curious if others have information that counters what I've found.
As much as you're right, posting facts about negative aspects of immigration will get you in trouble or you'll get branded names and down voted at best.
Yes and that it happens on cesspool platforms like reddit I can live with. However this is the new norm on HN of all places and it's really concerning. You'll get flagged even for mentioning that coordinated flagging exists on HN.
I vouched for your comment because it's benign and states an objective fact. My posts are being flagged by a group of users who dislike that. Users who flagged your post should be banned from flagging.
> Sweden's gun crime death rate is now the highest in the European Union.
> Statistics show that gang shooting suspects are predominantly of migrant background.
[1] https://news.sky.com/story/swedens-deadly-gang-war-has-turne...