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New school closing due to Instagram riot fears

Fears of renewed violence have prompted a second Gothenburg school to remain closed on Wednesday, the day after police clashed with a mob of angry teens upset over a slanderous Instagram account outing young girls and boys as 'sluts'.

New school closing due to Instagram riot fears

“There are rumours that they’ll be coming at us, but we have no idea why,” Jörgen Frohm, principal of the Framtidsskola high school, told the TT news agency.

“I’m standing here with the police… it’s pure stupidity and hooliganism. They want to maximize attention, but we’re not taking any risks.”

Frohm said there is no connection between his school and the Instagram account that prompted disturbances in Gothenburg on Tuesday, spreading from outside the Plusgymnasiet high school, which remained closed on Wednesday, to a nearby mall.

CLICK HERE FOR IMAGES FROM THE SCENE OF TUESDAY’S GOTHENBURG STUDENT RIOT

Paula Hammerskog, spokeswoman for Plusgymnasiet’s owner Academedia told TT she hoped the school would reopen as soon as possible, but that staff there would follow the advice of police.

Hammerskog confirmed that the 17-year-old girl suspected of being behind the Instagram account is a student at the school, but underlined that the suspicions were based on rumours.

“She’s getting the support she needs. We consider her innocent,” she told TT.

The 17-year-old girl is being formally investigated for slander by the police after claims that she was behind an Instagram account filled with details of the alleged sexual activities and proclivities of local teens, some with racial overtones and many written with extremely offensive language.

The girl has denied, however, having anything to do with account that led students to riot in the city’s streets on Tuesday, resulting in 27 arrests.

“I’ve been interrogated by the police. But I’ve been falsely accused. I haven’t done this,” the girl told the Expressen newspaper, claiming that others had set up the Instagram account.

She instead claimed she was set up by the real account owners when she threatened to report them to the police.

She herself had her picture posted among the roughly 200 images of boys and girls exposed on the Instagram account after its administrator asked for “tips on sluts in Gothenburg”.

Meanwhile, a new version of the Instagram account appeared again on Tuesday night, featuring images with degrading and sexist comments.

Several other “copycat” accounts have appeared in other cities.

The Borås Tidning (BT) newspaper reports that young girls have filed a police report after an Instagram account appeared with pictures of several teenage girls in various states of undress.

The local Göteborgs-Posten (GP) newspaper reports that police have received more than 40 complaints of slander in the wake of the degrading posts on Instagram and Facebook, which include claims about their sex lives.

TT/The Local/dl

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POLITICS

Red-green coalition takes power in Gothenburg

The Social Democrats, Green Party and Left Party have managed to oust the right-wing Moderates from power in Gothenburg, despite failing to strike a coalition deal with the Centre Party.

Red-green coalition takes power in Gothenburg

The Social Democrats, Left Party and Green Party will now take over the municipality with Jonas Attenius, group leader for the Social Democrats in the city, becoming the new mayor.

“We three parties are ready to together take responsibility for leading Gothenburg,” Attenius wrote to TT. “I am looking forward immensely to leading Gothenburg in the coming years.” 

The three parties will lead a minority government, with 40 out of 81 mandates, meaning it will dependent on mandates from the Centre Party to pass proposals. 

The three parties had hoped to bring the Centre Party into the coalition, but talks fell apart on Monday,  October 24th. 

“We our going into opposition, but our goal is to be an independent, liberal force, which can negotiate both to the left and to the right,” the party’s group leader in Gothenburg, Emmyly Bönfors told the Göteborgs-Posten newspaper. 

The end of talks in Gothenburg leave the Social Democrats leading coalition governments in all three of Sweden’s major cities, with Karin Wanngård appointed Mayor of Stockholm on October 17th. 

The Social Democrats had unbroken control in Malmö since 1994, after they regained power from the Moderates, who controlled the city from 1991-1994, and also from 1985-1988. 

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