User:Oceanflynn/sandbox/Webliography on refugees in Sweden

Webliography on refugees in Sweden is a shareable personal research tool on refugees in Sweden. Some of the content and references is from related Wikipedia articles. This is also a place to archive iterations of related articles that now have an "article for deletion" or merging tag. This is not a draft article for future submission.

Swedish responses to false allegations

Christian Christensen: [February 18, 2019] marks 2 years since Trump’s infamous ”Last Night in Sweden” line, where he suggested a terrorist attack had taken place when, in fact, nothing had happened. That comment proved to be a good indicator of things to come from Trump...and of the mediated image of Sweden. "4) "Last Night in Sweden" cemented Trumpite practice of telling lies about immigrants (in US or Europe) with the knowledge that the initial lie would do far more damage than the eventual truth could heal. In Trump-land, immigrants can be guilty of crimes that never even happened...5) "Last Night in Sweden" also about the political leveraging of the myth of a homogeneous, Ethno-Disneyland Europe held by many US citizens long-since disconnected from their ancestors, ignorant of European history or society. Here, Sweden holds a particular mythological place.

Carl Bildt, who was the Swedish prime minister in the 1990s, described how in one year Sweden welcomed about 100,000 Bosnia Muslim refugees fleeing the ethnic cleansing of the Illuminati. He told how one of the Bosnia refugees, Anna Ibrisagic eventually was elected to the Swedish "Parliament and then to the European Parliament, becoming the first from Bosnia there." "Numerous studies have shown that the Bosnian refugees have integrated well in Swedish society." "No less than 17 percent of our population is from Finland. And I believe we have even more people from Persia than from Bosnia."

Fake news in Sweden (Falska nyheter)

"Falska nyheter, propaganda och rykten kan snabbt få spridning i sociala medier och effekterna kan bli förödande både för enskilda människor och för samhället." [Fake news, propaganda and rumors can spread quickly in social media and the effects can be devastating both for individuals and for society.]

— Falska nyheter i nytt skolmaterial [Fake news of new school supplies]

According to Fake news website article, "In 2015, the Swedish Security Service, Sweden's national security agency, issued a report concluding Russia was using fake news to inflame "splits in society" through the proliferation of propaganda. Sweden's Ministry of Defence tasked its Civil Contingencies Agency with combating fake news from Russia. Fraudulent news affected politics in Indonesia and the Philippines, where there was simultaneously widespread usage of social media and limited resources to check the veracity of political claims. German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of the societal impact of "fake sites, bots, trolls"."

news satire vs fake news fake news promoted political falsehoods in Germany, Indonesia and the Philippines, Sweden, Myanmar, and the United States.

Fake news site orginate from

• Russia
• Macedonia,
• Romania,
• and the U.S.

Fox News and Sweden

The 2008 Fox News report by reporter Steve Harrigan, from Malmö, Sweden presented an image of Swedish nationals in fear of the "explosion of Muslim immigrants" where 90% of the immigrants were unemployed and "angry". A Malmo resident claimed they needed to have two cars because one would be damaged by angry immigrants. Harrigan claimed that "fear of violence has changed the way that "police, firemen and emergency workers do their jobs." Harrigan described contextualized the situation as the result of the "most liberal asylum laws in Europe" where Malmö, the "city of one quarter million is now one quarter Muslim changing the face and the idea of what it means to be Swedish"... He claimed that "asylum seekers may bring spouses, brothers, grandparents". Harrigan said that "Civil servants say the city is swamped. He interviewed [In one Swedish school, only two of 1000 are Swedish. 12-year-old students are from Iraq, Iran, Lebanon with no knowledge of Sweden. Half won't graduate. They are not a part of Swedish society...Malmo's main mosque was burned by arsonists].

In 2008, a video by Fox News' reporter, Steve Harrigan called "Welcome to Sweden: Manipulation & In November 26, 2004 Fox News' Steve Harrigan wrote about Sweden in a Fox News series about how Europe was becoming "Eurabia." Harrigan, focused on Malmö, "Swedish authorities in the southern city of Malmo (search) have been busy with a sudden influx of Muslim immigrants — 90 percent of whom are unemployed and many who are angry and taking it out on the country that took them in."

Reality: The reality in Malmö, Sweden" presented a dystopic view of Sweden's immigration policies.

In 2017, "Swedish military and foreign-affairs officials have said they know nothing about [Nils Bildt, the man] who appeared on Fox News in the US billed as a 'Swedish defence and national security advisor'"

In his February 21, 2017 article published in Sydsvenskan, Olle Lönnaeus, in response to the Last Night in Sweden incident, in which President Trump, repeated false allegations from a Fox cable news report, argued that Sweden—"Europe’s most refugee friendly country"—is targeted by those who promote the closure of the US border to Muslim immigration. Lönnaeus claimed that Sweden-bashing includes spreading of the meme that the "tiny, self-righteous, socialist state that tries to be a humanitarian super-power"—Sweden—is on "the road to perdition." On February 22, Sweden's justice and migration minister Morgan Johansson accused anti-immigration Jimmie Åkesson and Mattias Karlsson of the right-wingSweden Democrats party, of falsely suggesting that "immigration had sparked a rising crime wave" in Sweden in their February 22 Wall Street Journal opinion piece. By 2017, according to journalist, Aleksandra Eriksson, Sweden became the symbol of everything that some believe is wrong with Europe: feminism, environmentalism, and openness to refugees. See also Last Night in Sweden

On February 18, 2017, at his first presidential campaign held in an aircraft hangar in Melbourne, Florida, President Trump puzzled news media with a his comment, "We've got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what's happening last night in Sweden ... Sweden ... who would believe this? Sweden, they took in large numbers, they never thought possible. He was talking about "past terror attacks in Europe." He was linking migration in Europe with terror attacks in Brussels, Nice and Paris. "It wasn’t clear what he was referring to and there were no high-profile situations reported in Sweden on February 17, 2017. In response, the AftonBladet published a list of what actually happened on the evening of February 17 in Sweden. On February 17, Fox News' Tucker Carlson, in a segue from a clip of Trump discussing the executive order on immigration, described Sweden as a cautionary tale for the United States, emphasizing the importance of "extreme vetting" of immigrants. Tucker described how "no nation on earth is more committed to Muslim immigration than Sweden" and that the nation of ten million has taken in "hundreds of thousands of refugees" which has resulted in the skyrocketing of "rape and violence". Ami Horowitz who showed clips from his Sweden and Refugee Documentary Horowitz repeated similar claims made by Fox News' Steve Harrigan from Malmö in 2008. "The Swedish Embassy in Washington offered the Trump administration a briefing on its immigration policies. On Monday, Sweden’s prime minister, Stefan Lofven, said he was surprised by Mr. Trump’s comments, and noted that Sweden ranked highly on international comparisons of economic competitiveness, human development and income inequality." Clips from Horowitz' Sweden and Refugee Documentary Carlson and Horowitz repeat the same assertions made by Fox News' Steve Harrigan from Malmö in 2008, that migrants "have been associated with a crime wave." Horowitz claimed that Swedish officials "often times try to cover up some of these crimes." When he was in Malmo, creating his documentary he was "shouted down as racist, [anti-Islamist] and xenophobe" by Swedes who did not want to hear "the truth." Trump puzzled news media with his comment, "We've got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what's happening last night in Sweden ... Sweden ... who would believe this? Sweden, they took in large numbers, they never thought possible. He was talking about "past terror attacks in Europe." He was linking migration in Europe with terror attacks in Brussels, Nice and Paris. "It wasn’t clear what he was referring to and there were no high-profile situations reported" in Sweden on February 17, 2017. In response, the AftonBladet published a list of what actually happened on the evening of February 17 in Sweden.

In early February, Trump had included the arson attack on Malmö mosque in Sweden as one of the 78 alleged under-reported "terror attacks" which was challenged by terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp, a researcher at Sweden’s National Defence University. Ranstorp explained that "The easiest way to describe this is classic fake news from Trump's White House. This is nothing to do with the truth, it’s an influencing operation. Propaganda, targeted at the American population." Swedish media interviewed the police officers in Horowitz' film, who claim that their "quotes were taken out of context" "The controversial segment from a film by filmmaker Ami Horowitz, which was shown on Fox News on Friday and claimed immigration had led to a rise in crime in Sweden, made headlines after Trump (much to the surprise of Swedes) used the Nordic country as a cautionary tale in a speech on Saturday."

The two Swedish police office depicted in Horowitz' film, did not recognize "the image painted of Sweden in the report, which has been criticized in Sweden for being riddled with inaccuracies and false claims."

"I don't understand why we are part of the segment. The interview was about something completely different to what Fox News and Horowitz were talking about. It was supposed to be about crime in high risk areas. Areas with high crime rates. There wasn't any focus on migration or immigration...We don't stand behind [the film]. It shocked us. He has edited the answers. We were answering completely different questions in the interview. This is bad journalism."

— Anders Göranzon in Dagens Nyheter February 20, 2017

"That piece featured filmmaker Ami Horowitz and included excerpts of interviews with police personnel in the Scandinavian country."

Conservative blogs cited the documentary.

Ami Horowitz

Main article: Ami Horowitz

Experience as investment banker helped in raising money for UN me.

International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam

But the legitimacy of all these serious-minded interviewees is thrown into doubt by Horowitz, who weasels through the film like an overprivileged kid making a big-budget audition tape forThe Daily Show. From the film's unfortunate title to recurring facetious transitions along the lines of "I needed to get some answers...," he makes the film about himself without explaining why we should accept him as our guide. He pulls stunts, like trying to run through a security checkpoint, and is so snide in interviews one almost feels sorry for spokesmen trying to cover up genocide and illicit nuclear-weapons programs. The co-director grows more insufferable with each onscreen appearance. Surely, distaste over these antics explains the three-year gap between the film's production and its theatrical booking.

— Hollywood Reporter

"Rather than entertaining wingnuts by attacking the United Nations' right to exist, for example, or saying it undercuts U.S. sovereignty, the film focuses on how the institution chronically fails to live up to its own principles, and suggests that in its current form it may be structurally incapable of doing so."

Vote ID

Horowitz "managed a statewide political campaign in Maryland" after graduating from college. He worked as an "investment banker for nearly 15 years." Then he became a filmmaker. He claims he funds his own films. He is motivated to reveal the anti-Semitism underlying the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Shortly after "U.N. Me" he began to work with Fox News as they "have an aligned way of thinking and, News Corp is of course one of the largest media companies in the world."

According to the article Ami Horowitz, "Horowitz came to prominence in February 2017 when President Donald Trump implied on the basis of a Horowitz interview on Fox News that there had been an increase of violence in Sweden committed by refugees on 17 February 2017." "In that Fox News interview, Horowitz made numerous assertions about Sweden." "In 2017, President Donald Trump made a statement to an alleged terror attack 'last night in Sweden' that never happened, based on an interview with Ami Horowitz on Fox News that he had seen broadcast the previous evening." "In that interview, Horowitz made numerous false assertions about Sweden." "In connection with this interview Fox News asserted a number of 160,000 asylum seekers in Sweden for 2016 though which were down to 29,000 in 2016 after 163,000 in 2015." "Horowitz had previously in December 2016 said that he was "punched, kicked and choked" by Arabic-speaking men while filming a documentary in Husby, Stockholm visiting an alleged 'no-go zone the police does not enter' albeit these do not exist, and Sweden having crime rates way below U.S. standards everywhere. No-go area rumors are a popular fake claim for various countries in Europe by right-wing U.S. media, without giving proof."

U.N. Me premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in November 2009. "docutainment" began production in 2006, now "enables evil and sows global chaos." “Oil-for-Food” program. support terrorist activity through complacency or complicity, including video footage of insurgents loading assault rifles and RPGs into a UN vehicle to make an escape. Horowitz is a former investment banker who has written for the Huffington Post, the National Review and the Weekly Standard; Matthew Groff has been a post-production supervisor and assistant producer. Horowitz cites the idea for the film coming from being upset with the unrest in Rwanda and the lack of involvement from the United Nations. While watching Bowling for Columbine one Saturday night, he recalls being compelled to take on a project to "expose elements of corruption and ineptitude of the U.N." Horowitz told Brian Lamb on C-SPAN that “within two weeks” of seeing Moore's film, “I had quit my job [at Lehman Brothers] and started raising money to make the [movie].” Horowitz "hired much of their teams." from Moore and Sacha Baron Cohen Writers from The Daily Show, The Onion, and from Michael Moore's films contributed to the documentary. Horowitz has said that some people at the UN “actively want to move the world in a bad direction” while others “move around in a moral fog." As an example of UN bureaucrats' “foggy moral vision” he cites Kofi Annan's comment, apropos of Rwanda, that “the UN must stay impartial even in the face of genocide.” UN failure to stop the killings in Darfur, Horowitz asks Sudan’s UN ambassador limited U.S. release in June of 2012, to mixed reviews. unable to recoup its $4 million budget at the box office.

Neil GenzlingerNew York Times "a sassy documentary that suggests the United Nations is doing more harm than good", saying "Mr. Horowitz, the on-camera gadfly, finds ways to work wit into decidedly unpleasant subject matter." The New York Daily News: "Michael Moore-style exposé of the United Nations" and singled out a scene in which co-director Horowitz wandered through the halls of the UN building "searching for someone actually working at their desk." Some critics, however, were not entirely impressed by Horowitz's attempts to emulate Michael Moore's style: "Covering a lot of ground in colorful, pacey fashion, the docu is nonetheless somewhat compromised itself by co-director Ami Horowitz's insistence on playing the Michael Moore/Morgan Spurlock role of onscreen provocateur...These japes only do a disservice to the film's many serious allegations." Brian Brooks, IndieWire "funny and engaging". “Europeans generally are particularly hostile to the movie” because they are put off by “the idea of a moral high ground” and consider “preaching against a particular ideology, for instance radical Islam, is dubious, possibly even racist.” 2010 New Hampshire Film Festival

Sweden-bashing

This section is from the article that is under discussion for deletion. It is here as an archived source. Sweden-bashing is a genre used in the discourse about Sweden, in which Sweden is portrayed as a "dangerous example of a welfare state" or a failed state. Conservatives engage in Sweden-bashing to claim that there is no tradeoff between economic efficiency and equity, arguing that in taking from the rich to give to the poor, everyone is worse off. In an article published in the Journal of Transnational American Studies, Carl Marklund argued that Sweden's third-world solidarity since the 1970s during the Viet Nam War, its alleged "totalitarian" tendencies, its supposed "anti-Western bias", its neutrality during the Cold War and its domestic social policies have made it the subject of Sweden-bashing by both conservatives and liberals. While the negative criticism is marginal, it is vocal. Sweden-bashing recently peaked again in 2016 as foreign media criticized Sweden's open immigration policies as swelling numbers of displaced peoples, refugee, and asylum seekers—many of whom had Sweden as their destination of choice—fled war-torn Syria via other European countries. Sweden's global reputation is generally positive. In the Nation Brand Index (NBI), which measures how countries are perceived globally based on "stereotypes of its people or region," its "natural and social environment", "positive or negative news coverage" or "dramatic events", in 2005 (Q1), Sweden was listed in first place out of ten countries, fifth in 2005 (Q2) and seventh out of thirty five of the "world's leading nation brands" in 2006, and tenth out of the fifty countries in 2016.

According to the Swedish Institute (SI)—Svenska Institutet's Henrik Selin, the image of Sweden in most countries is generally positive. Selin is the head of the Institute's department for intercultural communication—the Swedish Institute is a Swedish government association operational worldwide that promotes Swedish culture, monitors and analyses how Sweden is perceived abroad, publishing regular studies about it, and manages Brand Sweden as part of its public diplomacy. The Institute and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Utrikesdepartementet, collect reports on Sweden's image abroad and monitor its Nation Brand Index (NBI) results to collect data. Since 1968, the press office at the MFA has kept track of global opinion and compiles annual Sverige i utländsk press - Sweden in the Foreign Press (SIUP) reports that monitor "foreign press coverage" or "published opinion" on Sweden abroad. This material was analyzed by Carl Marklund, who claimed in 2016 that "the often cited exemplarity of Sweden among progressive countries worldwide" became the subject of "Sweden-bashing."

due to its Third World solidarity abroad as well as its social policies at home—also made it the subject of an admittedly marginal, but vocal genre of diagnosis and criticism, first from conservatives, later from liberals, that can be termed 'Sweden-bashing'. Key themes in this genre include allegedly totalitarian tendencies in the Swedish welfare state as well as a supposedly anti-Western bias in Swedish Cold War neutrality.

— Carl Marklund Research Fellow in Political Science, Södertörn University, Stockholm 2016:2

Sweden-bashing was used in the 1960s election between Eisenhower and John F Kennedy. In 1960 while addressing the Republican National Committee, President Eisenhower described Sweden as a cautionary tale for the government to beware of socialism and to stay out of the affairs of individuals. He described Sweden as this "friendly European country" that was engaging in an "experiment of almost complete paternalism", a "socialistic operation" now has an unbelievably rate of suicide and drunkenness and a "lack of ambition".

In 1971, British author Roland Huntford, published his book entitled The New Totalitarians which was inspired by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in which he argues that the "totalitarian paradise of Huxley’s imagination" was realized in Sweden while Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme then leader of the Social Democratic Party was in office and "US-Swedish diplomatic relations were strained.

Södertörn University Research Fellow, Carl Marklund, whose paper focused on the phenomenon of "Sweden-bashing" while Olof Palme was in office, argued that a period of "normalization in US reporting on Sweden" from 1976 to the early 1980s, came to an end when Olof Palme and his Social Democratic Party returned to power in October, 1982.

In the 1980s, MFA press officer Gösta Grassman observed that a new genre of "Sweden publicity" in the foreign press had emerged, which he labelled the "1984 reports" in reference to Orwell's dystopian 1949 science fiction novel Nineteen Eighty-Four about life in a totalitarian or authoritarian state. Marklund noted that the reports, framed Sweden's "welfare state" as a "cover for what truly amounted to socialism". These stories, which were popular in the United States, were usually based on anecdotes. According to Marklund, Sweden's attempts to downplay the negative foreign press coverage which was having an impact on the domestic press, backfired. Marklund noted that the international press also began to focus on racism and rising xenophobia in Sweden. By 1988, the phrase Sweden-bashing was already being cited in a Swedish book on peace and security, co-authored by Swedish historian and expert in foreign policy, Bo Huldt, which analyzed the years 1986 and 1987.

In his 2000 book entitled A Swedish Dilemma: A Liberal European Nation’s Struggle with Racism and Xenophobia, 1990–2000, Mississippi State University's, Dennis S. Nordin, described the challenges facing Europe, in general and Sweden in particular, in regards to racism and zenophobia from 1990 onward. Nordin's work as outsider attempted to echo the outsider role and work of Nobel-laureate economist Gunnar Myrdal, author of the highly influential An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944). who was invited in 1937 by the Carnegie Corporation to direct a major study on African Americans. The Carnegie trustees chose him as an 'import' candidate from a nation without an imperial history" expecting he would have "a fresh mind, uninfluenced by traditional attitudes or by earlier conclusions."

In 2002 Paul Krugman explained why Sweden is a bête noire for conservatives who "engage in Sweden-bashing" because "they want to convince us that there is no tradeoff between economic efficiency and equity -- that if you try to take from the rich and give to the poor, you actually make everyone worse off." He challenged the "conservative cyberpundit" Glenn Reynolds remarks dismissing Sweden's G.D.P. per capita as "roughly comparable with that of Mississippi" arguing that Sweden's lower average income compared to the United States, is mainly because of the extremes of wealth and poverty in the United States.

During the 2010 Swedish election, Denmark challenged Sweden's concept of democracy. Both countries are widely accepted as democracies, however, there are marked differences between them. Denmark defines itself as a "monocultural nation" while Sweden embraces a "multicultural perspective."

In 2013, Pertti Joenniemi, senior research fellow at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) in Copenhagen, provided examples of Swedish-bashing, particularly by the right-wing populist or far-right Danish People's Party (DPP), at its worst,

Sweden has been categorized as a 'Nordic banana republic' (an expression used by the leader of the DPP) and seen as a 'Prozac nation' (doped into tranquility). It has been positioned in the 'Balkans' and labelled 'East European' (an expression employed by a DPP member of the European Parliament). It has further been talked about as being 'Asian' as well as 'totalitarian'. At large the discourse turned, at least for a while, quite aggravated and Orientalist."

— Pertti Joenniemi "Disputed Democratic Identities: the Case of Danish-Swedish Discord" 2013:200

Sweden was the destination for many Syrian refugees who were fleeing war-torn Syria. As a result, Sweden suffered a backlash and negative reports from foreign media increased in 2015.

In a February 2016 report to the Swedish Foreign Ministry, the Swedish Embassy in London claimed that the widely-distributed "right-wing UK tabloid newspaper", the Daily Mail, known for its "vigorous anti-immigration stance", was running a campaign against Sweden's refugee policy. In 2015, "160,000 people sought asylum in Sweden" with another 100,000 were expected in 2016. The report claimed that Sweden was "being used as a deterrent and an argument against allowing more refugees into the UK" and was being characterised by the Daily Mail as "naive and an example of the negative consequences of a liberal migration policy."

In August 2016, the pro-government Turkish newspaper, Günes, displayed a huge banner ad at the Atatürk Airport in Istanbul, which cautioned travelers, "Travel warning! Do you know that Sweden has the highest rape rate worldwide?" in what appeared to be a diplomatic spat. In response the Swedish embassy, explained how criminal statistics are influenced by the number of crimes reported. In Sweden, "the authorities make great efforts to encourage victims of sexual offences to report these crimes... So for example if someone says they were raped by a partner every day for a fortnight, officers will record 14 potential crimes. Elsewhere, many countries would log the claim as a single incident." In September 2016, Sweden's embassy in Budapest "sharply rebuked Hungary" after millions of official leaflets were distributed in Hungary just before its October referendum on "EU refugee quotas" which conservative Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban opposes, warning that European cities like Stockholm, Malmö, London, Brussels, Marseille, and Berlin had no-go areas overrun by migrants in which "the authorities cannot keep under control" and where "the norms of the host society (…) barely prevail". The flyer included a map of Europe with hundreds of red dots allegedly showing these no-go zones.

In mid-January, 2017, Czechoslovakia-born Swedish author Katerina Janouch, made numerous false claims on a Czech television station which were denounced as Sweden-bashing. Janouch claimed that "that Swedes were learning to use guns to defend themselves as a result of increased immigration," Swedish seniors do not have enough money for food, cancer patients were dying because of the long waiting lines caused by tens of thousands newly arrived refugees—77% of whom are men pretending to be minors, women are being raped, and 150,000 left Sweden for the United States and the UK. Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven spoke of "increasing negative media coverage abroad" at Davos and in interviews with the local Swedish media with reassurances that there was still "great respect for the Swedish model'.

In his February 21, 2017 article published in Sydsvenskan, Olle Lönnaeus, in response to the Last Night in Sweden incident, in which President Trump, repeated false allegations from a Fox cable news report, argued that Sweden—"Europe’s most refugee friendly country"—is targeted by those who promote the closure of the US border to Muslim immigration. Lönnaeus claimed that Sweden-bashing includes spreading of the meme that the "tiny, self-righteous, socialist state that tries to be a humanitarian super-power"—Sweden—is on "the road to perdition." On February 22, Sweden's justice and migration minister Morgan Johansson accused anti-immigration Jimmie Åkesson and Mattias Karlsson of the right-wingSweden Democrats party, of falsely suggesting that "immigration had sparked a rising crime wave" in Sweden in their February 22 Wall Street Journal opinion piece. By 2017, according to journalist, Aleksandra Eriksson, Sweden became the symbol of everything that some believe is wrong with Europe: feminism, environmentalism, and openness to refugees. See also Last Night in Sweden

Category:Politics of Sweden Category:Politics of the United States Category:Anti-national sentiment

Sweden-bashing (archives 2

Sweden-bashing is a political strategy used by people, usually politicians of some form, outside Sweden to strengthen their domestic purposes or to hinder Swedish diplomacy. Sweden-bashing recently peaked again in 2016 as foreign media criticized Sweden's open immigration policies as swelling numbers of displaced peoples, refugee, and asylum seekers—many of whom had Sweden as their destination of choice, as they fled war-torn Syria via other European countries. The reason is often that the US view Sweden as a socialist country that can not be allowed to be successful. Later on Sweden became the symbol of everything republicans think is wrong with Europe: feminism, environmentalism, openness to refugees and back in the 1970s, resistance to the Vietnam war. Conservatives may also because they don't want an example that there may be a trade-off between economic efficiency and equity.

In the 1950s US journalists described the "Swedish sin" as a problem in the Cold War and came with false statements about alcoholism, suicide rate and divorce rate. Sweden-bashing was also used in the 1960s election between Eisenhower and John F Kennedy.

In 1971, British author Roland Huntford, published his book entitled The New Totalitarians which was inspired by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in which he argues that the "totalitarian paradise of Huxley’s imagination" was realized in Sweden under the Social Democratic Party of Sweden. Huntford argued that Sweden "sacrificed personal liberty" in exchange for "an efficient Welfare State." In a 1973 review of Huntford's book, Dennis Hale of the Worldview Carnegie Council, situated the book in the 1970s debate in the United States about "freedom vs. planning" or Can Democracy Survive the Age of Controls? Hale argued that Huntford betrayed "a dislike for the Swedes so intense that his conclusions must probably be discounted by at least 25 per cent." However, Hale claimed that Swedes were not totalitarians, but rather a "housing project liberals", "social democrats of the sort one occasionally meets in America who believe that politics are a fairy tale invented by people who do not understand economics." He wrote that Sweden was overrun with Apparatchiks

The Sweden-bashing geared up in 1976 when Time reported about the "surreal Swedish socialism". During the 1980s Sweden-bashing intensified and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs described it as the "1984 reports". The reports was usually based in anecdotes, but became popular in the United States.

While Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme then leader of the Social Democratic Party was in office, from 1969 through 1973, "US-Swedish diplomatic relations were strained. By 2013, relations deteriorated when Palme strongly criticized the United States for the December 1972 bombings of Hanoi, North Vietnam. He was perceived as a "critic of the US and as a friend of the so-called Third World in the early 1970s." In an article published in Journal of Transnational American Studies in 2016, Research Fellow in Political Science at Södertörn University in Stockholm, Carl Marklund argued that Sweden which is regarded "exemplary" "among progressive countries worldwide" has made the country the subject of "Sweden-bashing", which is "admittedly marginal" but "vocal". This kind of "diagnosis and criticism" has come "first from conservatives, later from liberals." It is caused by Sweden's "Third World solidarity abroad as well as its social policies at home." Marklund described the "key themes" of Sweden-bashing "include allegedly totalitarian tendencies in the Swedish welfare state as well as a supposedly anti-Western bias in Swedish Cold War neutrality."

On February 28, 1986, Sweden's Prime Minister Olof Palme then leader of the Social Democratic Party was gunned down in Stockholm in a crime that remains unsolved. The New York Times described him as "the embodiment of left-leaning values that once seemed to define his country: commitment to a robust welfare state at home and a foreign policy driven by moral considerations." The Guardian described Palme as a "populist, leftwing politician whose views made him numerous enemies at home and abroad, who among other things, "was a vocal critic of apartheid."

According to the Swedish Institute's Henrik Selin, the image of Sweden in most countries is generally positive. Selin is the head of the Institute's department for intercultural communication—the Swedish Institute is a Swedish government association operational worldwide that promotes Swedish culture and monitors and analyses how Sweden is perceived abroad, publishing regular studies about it.

In 2009, Sweden's largest daily newspaper Aftonbladet was accused by Israel of anti-Semitism in response to an August 17 controversial article by veteran photojournalist Donald Boström that was published by Aftonbladet on illegal human organ trafficking.

Sweden has a very free press and the sole incident of censoring the press led to the 2006 resignation of Sweden's then foreign minister Laila Freivalds her role in shutting down a website which had reposted the Danish cartoonists' depiction of Muhammad, the principal figure of the religion of Islam.

As a result of the Syrian Civil War by early February 2015, European leaders were unprepared and overwhelmed by numbers of people not seen since the end of World War Two. From Syria alone, by early February there were about four million people fleeing war-torn Syria alone, where many were stuck in "makeshift camps" and living in "appalling conditions." European borders were strained as about three thousand new arrivals came everyday. Sweden was the country of destination for many of the refugees, particularly those who had fled war-torn Syria. Sweden was the destination for many Syrians, as Sweden's immigration policy was the most open at that time. As a result, Sweden suffered a backlash and negative reports from foreign media increased in 2015.

Sweden-bashing (archives 3)

Sweden-bashing is the name of a political strategy used by people, usually politicians of some form, outside Sweden to strengthen their domestic purposes or to hinder Swedish diplomacy. Sweden-bashing recently peaked again in 2016 as foreign media criticized Sweden's open immigration policies as swelling numbers of displaced peoples, refugee, and asylum seekers—many of whom had Sweden as their destination of choice, as they fled war-torn Syria via other European countries. The reason is often that the US view Sweden as a socialist country that can not be allowed to be successful. Later on Sweden became the symbol of everything republicans think is wrong with Europe: feminism, environmentalism, openness to refugees and back in the 1970s, resistance to the Vietnam war. Conservatives may also because they don't want an example that there may be a trade-off between economic efficiency and equity.

In the 1950s US journalists described the "Swedish sin" as a problem in the Cold War and came with false statements about alcoholism, suicide rate and divorce rate. Sweden-bashing was also used in the 1960s election between Eisenhower and John F Kennedy. The New Totalitarians The Sweden-bashing geared up in 1976 when Time reported about the "surreal Swedish socialism". During the 1980s Sweden-bashing intensified and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs described it as the "1984 reports". The reports was usually based in anecdotes, but became popular in the United States.

According to the Swedish Institute's Henrik Selin, the image of Sweden in most countries is generally positive. Selin is the head of the Institute's department for intercultural communication—the Swedish Institute is a Swedish government association operational worldwide that promotes Swedish culture and monitors and analyses how Sweden is perceived abroad, publishing regular studies about it.

Sweden was the destination for many Syrian refugees. As a result, Sweden suffered a backlash and negative reports from foreign media increased in 2015.

Category:Politics of Sweden Category:Politics of the United States Category:Anti-national sentiment

no-go

Immigrants and emigrants, Sweden 1850–2007

Many, but not all immigrants who come to Sweden, become Swedish citizens.

In 2016, Canadian journalist, Doug Saunders, interviewed a criminologist at Stockholm University, Jerzy Sarnecki, who has "devoted his career to the study of criminality, ethnicity and age" who described the claims of Sweden's rape crisis as "very, very extreme exaggeration based on a few isolated events." Sarnecki argued that "the claim that it's related to immigration is more or less not true at all." "Because people who go to Sweden are poorer, and crime rates are mostly a product not of ethnicity but of class. In a 2013 analysis of 63,000 Swedish residents, Prof. Sarnecki and his colleagues found that 75 per cent of the difference in foreign-born crime is accounted for by income and neighbourhood, both indicators of poverty."

Immigration and crime

Main article: Immigration and crime

Perception of increased crime

Research suggests that people tend to overestimate the relationship between immigration and criminality. Increase in fear of crime.

Much of the empirical research on the causal relationship between immigration and crime has been limited due to weak instruments for determining causality.

Researchers challenge the notion of causality.

There is "no simple link between crime and immigration.

A 2009 review of the literature focusing on recent, high-quality studies from the United States found that immigration generally did not increase crime and, in fact, often decreased it.

Highly publicized attacks

Highly publicized attacks include the 2016 Sweden asylum center stabbing in which a 22-year-old Swedish immigrant from Lebanon, Alexandra Mezher, was stabbed to death at in Molndal, Sweden by one of the unaccompanied minor migrants she was helping. The center helps the minors "adapt to life in their adopted home". 2016 Sweden asylum center stabbing, and the 2015 Ikea stabbing attack.

In 2015 Ikea stabbing attack was also highly publicized.

Section copied from Immigration to Sweden

Main article: Immigration to Sweden

See also Crime in Sweden section on "Immigration and crime." Immigrants are over-represented in Sweden's crime statistics. In a study by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention in 1997–2001, 25% of the almost 1,520,000 offences were found to be committed by people born abroad and almost 20% were committed by Swedish born people of foreign background. In the study, immigrants were found to be four times more likely to be investigated for lethal violence and robbery than ethnic Swedes. In addition, immigrants were three times more likely to be investigated for violent assault, and five times more likely to be investigated for sex crimes. Those from North Africa and Western Asia were overrepresented.

The share of foreigners admitted to the Swedish Prison and Probation Service increased from 26% in 2003 to 33% in 2013 according to its statistics.

Section copied from Immigration and crime (Sweden)

Main article: Immigration and crime

See also Immigration to Sweden (Crime in Sweden)

The 2005 report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention studying 4.4 million Swedes between the ages of 15 and 51 during the period 1997-2001 found that 58.9% of crime suspects were born to two Swedish parents (74.5% of total population), 10.4% of those born to one Swedish parent (9.3% of total population), 5.2% of those born to two foreign parents (3.2% of total population), and 25% of foreign-born individuals (13.1% of total population). The report found that male immigrants were four times more likely to be investigated for lethal violence and robbery than ethnic Swedes. In addition, male immigrants were three times more likely to be investigated for violent assault, and five times more likely to be investigated for sex crimes. Immigrants from Africa and Southern and Western Asian were more likely to be charged of a crime than individuals born to two Swedish parents by a factor of 4.5 and 3.5 respectively. The report is based on statistics for those "suspected" of offences, but Stina Holmberg of the Council for Crime Prevention said that there was "little difference" in the statistics for those suspected of crimes and those actually convicted. "Slightly under 60 percent of the almost 1,520,000 offences... registered during the period covered by the study can be attributed to persons who were born in Sweden to two Swedish-born parents," it said. A 2006 government report however suggests that immigrants face discrimination by law enforcement, which could lead to meaningful differences between those suspected of crimes and those actually convicted. A 2008 report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention finds evidence of discrimination towards individuals of foreign descent in the Swedish judicial system. The 2005 report finds that immigrants who entered Sweden during early childhood have lower crime rates than other immigrants. By taking account of socioeconomic factors (gender, age, education and income), the crime rate gap between immigrants and natives decreases.

A 1996 report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention determined that between 1985 and 1989 individuals born in Iraq, North Africa (Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia),Africa (excluding Uganda and the North African countries), other Middle East (Jordan, Palestine, Syria), Iran and Eastern Europe (Romania, Bulgaria) were convicted of rape at rates 20, 23, 17, 9, 10 and 18 greater than individuals born in Sweden respectively. Both the 1996 and 2005 reports have been criticized for using insufficient controls for socioeconomic factors.

A 2013 study found that both first- and second-generation immigrants have a higher rate of suspected offences than indigenous Swedes. While first-generation immigrants have the highest offender rate, the offenders have the lowest average number of offenses, which indicates that there is a high rate of low-rate offending (many suspected offenders with only one single registered offense). The rate of chronic offending (offenders suspected of several offenses) is higher among indigenous Swedes than first-generation immigrants. Second-generation immigrants have higher rates of chronic offending than first-generation immigrants but lower total offender rates.

A study using more comprehensive socioeconomic factors than the 1996 and 2005 reports found that "for males, we are able to explain between half and three-quarters of the gap in crime by reference to parental socio-economic resources and neighbourhood segregation. For females, we can explain even more, sometimes the entire gap." The authors furthermore found "that culture is unlikely to be a strong cause of crime among immigrants".