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RINKEBY

Riots must be brought under control: Reinfeldt

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt cautioned that the riots that blighted the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby on Monday and Tuesday needed to be brought quickly under control.

Riots must be brought under control: Reinfeldt

“The consequences risk becoming very serious and could affect the people living in Rinkeby,” he told the TT news agency.

Education Minister Jan Björklund and Integration Minister Nyamko Sabuni on Wednesday visited Rinkeby to take stock of the situation.

Up to 100 youths have rioted for two straight nights in the Stockholm suburb, throwing bricks, setting fires and attacking the local police station, police said Wednesday.

“They set fire to a school building … They tried to set fire to the police station and other buildings and vehicles, but mostly they have thrown rocks and bricks at police and fire fighters,” police spokesperson Mats Eriksson told AFP.

He said no one had so far been injured in the riots which began on Monday in the northern suburb long blighted by high levels of unemployment and home to a large number of first and second generation immigrants.

“The whole thing started when a group of young adults were not permitted to enter a junior high school dance. They got angry and started throwing rocks through the school windows,” Eriksson said.

Up to 100 people went on a rampage, breaking 23 windows at the local police station and setting at least one car ablaze and leaving a school set up as a mentor programme for young people to find their way into the labour market, burned to the ground.

Three people were arrested late Monday, but had since been released, Eriksson said, adding that “I would say things got worse” Tuesday night, when the school and four or five cars were set on fire.

“Fire fighters were there but they couldn’t approach the blaze (at the school building, which was basically burned to the ground), because they were under attack,” he said.

Eriksson said local police in the western part of Stockholm would receive reinforcements from across the capital to try to calm tensions in Rinkeby.

“This is an extremely serious situation and we must bring it to an end as soon as possible, otherwise it will keep getting worse,” he said mirroring Reinfeldt’s words, adding the riots were “an attack on both the society as a whole and on the residents in the area.”

RIOT

Riots erupt in Malmö after far-right activists burn Koran

At least 10 people were arrested, and several police officers injured, in violence which broke out in southern Sweden after an anti-Muslim Danish politician was blocked from attending a Koran-burning rally, police said on Saturday.

Riots erupt in Malmö after far-right activists burn Koran
Rioters burn tyres on Amiralsgatan, Malmö on Friday night. Photo: TT
Well over 300 rioters were on Malmö's Amiralsgatan street, south of the Rosengård Centrum shopping centre, smashing bus shelters, overturning lampposts and destroying billboards. 
 
According to Malmö police, about 15 suspected rioters were arrested during the night, in violence which broke out in southern Sweden after a Koran-burning rally by far-extremists. Rasmus Paludan, leader of Denmark's far-Right anti-immigration Hard Line party was blocked from attending.
 
All of those arrested were released on Saturday morning. Police told The Local that about 13 people were likely to be charged with rioting offences, and told Sydsvenskan that they were currently looking for a few individuals who they suspected of encouraging young men at a peaceful demonstration to turn violent. 
 
“It's not right,” Malmo resident Shahed told the SVT public broadcaster. “But it wouldn't have happened if they hadn't burnt the Koran,” he added.
   
Rasmus Paludan, who leads the far-right Danish anti-immigration party Hard Line, was due to travel to Malmo to speak at Friday's event, which was being held on the same day as main weekly prayers for Muslims.
   
But authorities pre-empted Paludan's arrival by announcing he had been banned from entering Sweden for two years. He was later arrested near Malmo.
   
“We suspect that he was going to break the law in Sweden,” Calle Persson, spokesman for the police in Malmo told AFP.
 
“There was also a risk that his behaviour… would pose a threat to society.”
   
But his supporters went ahead with the rally, during which six people were arrested for inciting racial hatred.
   
“It hurts,” Salim Mohammed Ali, a Muslim resident of Malmo for over 20 years, told SVT on Saturday.
   
“People get angry and I understand that, but there are other ways of doing things,” he added.
   
Paludan last year attracted media attention for burning a Koran wrapped in bacon — a meat that is anathema for Muslims.   
   
Malmo is an industrial city of 320,000 inhabitants. In 2017, more than half the city's population, 53.6 percent, were either foreign-born or had at least one foreign-born parent. 
 
The riot started at around 7pm and continued up until 3am in the morning. 
 
The trouble flared after an incident earlier in the day in which members of Denmark's far-right Hard Line (Stram Kurs) party burned a copy of the Islamic holy book in the Malmö district of Emilstorp.
 
 
Police blocked off the street at the crossroads with Norra Grängebergsgatan, with the police presence increasing through the night until there were dozens of vans, several of which were armoured riot vans. 
 
Rioters pelted the police with stones, street furniture, burnt tyres and fired off fireworks, flares and bangers. 
 
“No member of the public has been wounded, but a few police officers are lightly wounded. Things have just been raining down on them,” Söderberg told TT. 
 
Patric Fors, another police spokesperson, said that police would be out on the streets of Rosengård on Saturday morning. 
 
“We have kept checks out there during the night but it remained calm, now this morning we're going to put in place confidence-building measures. Police will be moving around on feed, and talking with residents,” he told the Sydsvenskan newspaper. 
 
 
   
 
Samir Muric, a Malmö imam, condemned the rioters on his Facebook page. 
 
“Those who are acting in this way have nothing to do with Islam,” he wrote. Their shouts filled with 'la ilaha ill Allah' and 'Allahu Akbar' are just outbursts that they do not mean, because if they really meant that, they wouldn't have acted like this.” 
 
He said he was against all forms of burning “whether it's of the Koran or of tyres and crates”. 
 
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