'Immigrant' riots in Sweden involve hundreds of 'youths'

Sheesh! It took me 5 minutes of scanning about a half dozen articles before finally - finally - finding a media account of the riots by "immigrants" that have shocked Sweden in the last 48 hours that mentions where the rioters are from.

I can say without a trace of irony, "Thank God for the BBC":

Police in the deprived, largely immigrant suburb of Husby shot a man dead last week after he reportedly threatened to kill them with a machete.

The founder of a local youth group told Swedish media the riots were a reaction to "police brutality".

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt told reporters on Tuesday that Sweden would not be intimidated by rioters.

'Opportunistic'

On Tuesday night, cars were torched in western and southern Stockholm, and stones were thrown at police officers and firefighters. One area affected, Rinkeby, saw similar rioting in 2010.

Kjell Lindgren of the Stockholm police told Aftonbladet newspaper that the unrest had spread from the original rioting in Husby.

"It feels like people are taking the opportunity in other areas because of the attention given to Husby," he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Reinfeldt said: "We've had two nights with great unrest, damage, and an intimidating atmosphere in Husby and there is a risk it will continue.

"We have groups of young men who think that that they can and should change society with violence. Let's be clear: this is not okay. We cannot be ruled by violence."

More than 80% of Husby's 12,000 or so inhabitants are from an immigrant background, and most are from Turkey, the Middle East and Somalia.  (emphasis mine)

The head of a local "youth group" is very upset:

Rami al-Khamisi, a law student and founder of the youth organisation Megafonen, told the Swedish edition of online newspaper The Local that he had been insulted racially by police. Teenagers, he said, had been called "monkeys".

He said the crowd was reacting to a "growing marginalisation and segregation in Sweden over the past 10, 20 years" from both a class and a race perspective.

Bloomberg, Reuters, AP, - none mentioned the nationality of the rioters. Australia's News.com mentioned the name of the Muslim youth leader, but not thee religion or ethnicity of the lawbreakers.

One would think that in order to give proper perspective to the story, it might behoove the reporters to mention who it is that was rioting. But then, we can't have the press feeding the flames of anti-Muslim bigotry, can we? So the Muslim rioters will remain "youths" and "immigrants."




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