European anti-racism council raises concerns over Swedish government policy
Parts of the Tidö Agreement, the policy document agreed between the three government parties and the far-right Sweden Democrats, have led the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) to raise concerns over integration and discrimination in Sweden.
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ECRI regularly monitors the situation in EU member states when it comes to racism and intolerance, giving credit for positive developments and raising its concerns if it believes policy risks making things worse.
In its sixth report on Sweden, the commission praised the progress Sweden has made since the last report was issued at the end of 2017. This include the fact that Sweden has set up a museum about the Holocaust and criminalised Holocaust denial, issued new guidelines for investigating hate crimes and is attempting to increase the number of children with immigrant backgrounds attending preschool.
However, it also found that there were some areas of concern ‒ many of which are policies directly listed as government aims in the Tidö Agreement ‒ which it argued could increase "the feeling of marginalisation and exclusion among migrants".
"There are shortcomings in many teachers' capacity to teach about racism and intolerance, including LGBTI issues, while current confrontations and conflicts in and outside Europe (including the current conflict in the Middle East) and manifestations of racism and intolerance in society are reflected in classrooms," the report reads.
It also highlighted the fact that Sweden's Discrimination Act does not list sex as a protected characteristic, nor does the Criminal Code list it as a potential motivation for hate speech or hate crimes.
"Available statistics show that Black persons and people of African descent, often young, are common victims of hate crime, despite significant underreporting due to a lack of trust in the criminal justice system on the part of the victims," the report reads.
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ECRI specifically mentioned some policies included in the Tidö Agreement as cause for concern, writing that proposals such as tightening the conditions for family reunification, restricting permanent residency rules and deporting foreign nationals for conduct not considered appropriate "are likely to increase the sense of marginalisation and exclusion among migrants, and thus be harmful to integration".
In addition to this, it criticised the introduction of "security zones" or areas where the police are able to carry out stop and searches of people or vehicles without necessarily suspecting that a crime has been committed, warning that they bring "great risks of racial profiling."
Sweden was given a number of recommendations. The commission said that Sweden should "reinvigorate the role of education as a tool to better live together in intercultural societies" as well as creating a better understanding within education of issues linked to racist and homophobic stereotypes, or stereotypes related to religion and beliefs.
This, it said, could include better publicising existing resources as well as providing compulsory training for teachers on these issues.
Swedish authorities and public officials were also encouraged to take a "prompt, firm and public" stance against racism and hate speech against LGBT people.
It also called for Swedish authorities to collect "anonymised and disaggregated" data on hate crimes and review police guidelines on stop and search activities, specifically when it comes to the treatment of children and young people.
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