Dozens of reported
sexual assault
Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence, which ...
s in 2014 and 2015 at
We Are Sthlm
We Are Sthlm is an annual youth music festival, intended for youths in the ages 13 until 19, in the Swedish capital Stockholm.
It was first established as a summer music festival for youth in 2001 under the name "Ung08" with free yearly public c ...
, a youth festival in the Swedish capital
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
, were not publicized by the police. The Stockholm police had received 38 reports of
sexual harassment
Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions fro ...
at We Are Sthlm in 2014 and 2015 together, from female visitors at the festival, most of whom were under 15 years of age,
[ but had not publicized these reported harassments in their press releases then.][ Police spokesperson Varg Gyllander in 2016, during the commotion about the 2015–16 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany, suggested that this non-reporting in 2015 and 2014 may partly have been caused by the police's fear to "talk about these things in the context of the immigration debate today".][
]
Background
We Are Sthlm was established as a summer music festival for youth in 2000 under the name "Ung08" with free yearly public concerts and events in central Stockholm. The venture was successful and received support from Stockholm Municipality
Stockholm Municipality or the City of Stockholm ( sv, Stockholms kommun or ) is a municipality in Stockholm County in east central Sweden. It has the largest population of the 290 municipalities of the country, but one of the smallest areas, maki ...
in 2003. In 2013, the festival was attended by 160,000 people and changed its name to "We Are Sthlm".
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
s were reported at Swedish music festivals at Arvika
Arvika is a locality and the seat of Arvika Municipality, Värmland County, Sweden with 14,244 inhabitants in 2010.
Geography
The town of Arvika is situated at Kyrkviken, a bay of Glafsfjorden, Sweden's only inland fjord, a remnant of the time ...
in 2006 and 2010, at Emmaboda
Emmaboda () is a locality and the seat of Emmaboda Municipality, Kalmar County, Sweden. It had 4,824 inhabitants in 2010.
History
Until 1875, Emmaboda was called Gantesbo. Back then there were only two houses in Gantesbo, which both remain to thi ...
in 2014, and at Bråvalla in 2015. At the Arvika festivals, the police publicized reports of rape but characterized both events as "calm".
2014 and 2015 festivals
In 2014 and 2015 together, 38 incidents of sexual harassment at We Are Sthlm were reported to the police by female visitors at the festival, most of whom were under 15 years of age, but the Stockholm police did not publicize about these alleged harassments in their press releases then, also the assaults seem to not have been fully investigated.[
A police spokesman played down the scale of these harassment incidents: around 15 such reports, by 170,000 people for five days gathered in an open youth music festival, "is still too many, but also not very much".][
In connection to the 2015 festival, ]Sveriges Radio
Sveriges Radio AB (, "Sweden's Radio") is Sweden's national publicly funded radio broadcaster. Sveriges Radio is a public limited company, owned by an independent foundation, previously funded through a licensing fee, the level of which is d ...
in August 2015 reported that sexual harassment
Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions fro ...
had occurred that year, and that festival had been plagued by the same problems for several years.
Newspaper ''Dagens Nyheter
''Dagens Nyheter'' (, ), abbreviated ''DN'', is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It is published in Stockholm and aspires to full national and international coverage, and is widely considered Sweden's newspaper of record.
History and profile
''Da ...
'' on 10 January 2016, during the commotion over the 2015–16 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany, had obtained internal documents from the police and wrote about what they now framed as a police cover-up of sex assaults.[ ''Dagens Nyheter'' analyzed that sexual harassment had been a problem since the festival started in 2000, but that the information had been withheld due to concern for the reputation of the event.
Police spokesperson Varg Gyllander on 11 January 2016 suggested that the non-reporting in 2015 and 2014 had been ""self censorship" on the part of individual officers", as certain "police employees ... are afraid of talking about these things in the context of the immigration debate today".]
2016 media coverage
On 9 January, crime reporter Lasse Wierup published an article in newspaper ''Dagens Nyheter
''Dagens Nyheter'' (, ), abbreviated ''DN'', is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It is published in Stockholm and aspires to full national and international coverage, and is widely considered Sweden's newspaper of record.
History and profile
''Da ...
'' as a reaction to the New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
, especially in Cologne. Wierup pointed to the similarity of the German assaults to reports of incidents in Kalmar
Kalmar (, , ) is a city in the southeast of Sweden, situated by the Baltic Sea. It had 36,392 inhabitants in 2010 and is the seat of Kalmar Municipality. It is also the capital of Kalmar County, which comprises 12 municipalities with a total of ...
and at the We Are Sthlm festival in August 2015. Wierup was critical of the absence of media attention and posed questions on the reasons for the lack of attention and what it meant for the safety of women in public spaces. Dagens Nyeter received a tip about the event, but failed to get it verified. The following day, ''Dagens Nyheter'' published an article criticizing the Stockholm police for withholding the information in their media communication, and pointed to something as the reason for not reporting on the assaults.
The story received international attention, partly as it was broken shortly after sexual assaults in various German cities and the Swedish city of Malmö
Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...
over the New Year. ''The Guardian'' reported that police and "the media" were alleged to have "deliberately under-report d the assaults in order to not increase anti-immigrant
Opposition to immigration, also known as anti-immigration, has become a significant political ideology in many countries. In the modern sense, immigration refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory ...
sentiment.[
According to one memo, police in 2015 were told to be vigilant of young men sexually assaulting women in the crowd, as the previous year such offences had been committed, mostly by migrants, including Afghans. David Brax, a scholar of hate crimes at the ]University of Gothenburg
The University of Gothenburg ( sv, Göteborgs universitet) is a university in Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg. Founded in 1891, the university is the third-oldest of the current Swedish universities and with 37,000 students and 6000 st ...
, hypothesised that police were concerned there would be revenge attacks against other migrants if the crimes were made public, but also predicted that a cover-up would vindicate the far-right's belief that the media do not report on migrant crime.
National police commissioner Dan Eliasson ordered an internal review with the possibility of disciplinary action or criminal proceedings if police had committed any offences. The Prime Minister of Sweden
The prime minister ( sv, statsminister ; literally translating to "Minister of State") is the head of government of Sweden. The prime minister and their cabinet (the government) exercise executive authority in the Kingdom of Sweden and are subj ...
, Stefan Löfven
Kjell Stefan Löfven (; officially ''Löfvén''; born 21 July 1957) is a Swedish politician who serves as the Party of European Socialists, President of European Socialists since October 2022. He previously served as Prime Minister of Sweden fro ...
, said that the women assaulted were victims of a "double betrayal" and promised to respond quickly to address the events.[
A 15-year-old boy was arrested on 11 January 2016 on charges of assault and sexual assault against two 14-year-old girls at the summer 2015 festival.
]
2018 festival
After closing the festival earlier and changing order of the acts they managed to get a 90% decrease of the number of incidents.
Reactions
Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Löfven
Kjell Stefan Löfven (; officially ''Löfvén''; born 21 July 1957) is a Swedish politician who serves as the Party of European Socialists, President of European Socialists since October 2022. He previously served as Prime Minister of Sweden fro ...
harshly criticised the police:
"I feel a very strong anger that young women are not able to go to a music festival without being offended, sexually harassed and attacked... It is a major democratic problem for the whole of our country," he said of the police failure to release timely information of the incidents to the public.
Allegations of media cover-up
There were accusations of media cover-ups. The Sweden Democrats
The Sweden Democrats ( sv , Sverigedemokraterna ; SD ) is a nationalist and right-wing populist political party in Sweden. As of 2022, it is the largest member of Sweden's right-wing governing bloc to which it provides confidence and supply, a ...
, a social conservative
Social conservatism is a political philosophy and variety of conservatism which places emphasis on traditional power structures over social pluralism. Social conservatives organize in favor of duty, traditional values and social institution ...
, anti-immigration
Opposition to immigration, also known as anti-immigration, has become a significant political ideology in many countries. In the modern sense, immigration refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory ...
party, claimed in January 2016 that ''DN'' had been made aware of the crimes, but had not reported them because it would have benefited the Sweden Democrats' agenda.[ In an anonymous interview with Norwegian magazine ''Journalisten'', a psychologist claimed to have given DN the tip, strongly criticizing the paper for not reacting.] ''DN'' editor Caspar Opitz has rejected the accusations,[ claiming that his newspaper investigated the tip seriously but could not confirm it.][ Answering questions, Opitz wrote that his staff had made multiple attempts to investigate, and had even found that some of the information in the tip (for example, that large numbers of people had been arrested) was not true. He further stated that the scarcity of leads meant that not even ]alternative media
Alternative media are media sources that differ from established or dominant types of media (such as mainstream media or mass media) in terms of their content, production, or distribution.Downing, John (2001). ''Radical Media''. Thousand Oaks, C ...
had covered the story.
See also
* 2015–16 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany
* 2017 Uppsala rape
References
{{Use dmy dates, date=October 2019
2014 crimes in Sweden
2015 crimes in Sweden
2010s in Stockholm
Crime in Stockholm
Law enforcement in Sweden
Sexual violence at riots and crowd disturbances
Violence against women in Sweden
Women in Sweden