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LIVING IN SWEDEN

US tech worker’s account of racist abuse in Sweden goes viral

An Asian-American tech worker's 25-tweet diatribe against the racist abuse she claims she has received since arriving in Sweden three years ago has gone viral. The thread fed into the disappointment many foreigners feel at the new government's anti-immigration programme.

Published: 20 October 2022 21:55 CEST
Updated: 22 October 2022 09:41 CEST
US tech worker’s account of racist abuse in Sweden goes viral
Kat Zhou detailed several cases of the racist abuse she had received in her three years in Stockholm. Photo: private

Kat Zhou, who describes herself as a ‘senior product designer in the tech industry’, began her tweet by saying that Sweden’s new government, which is backed by the far-right Sweden Democrats, was a “swing towards fascism” that she did not find surprising at all, based on the racist experiences she has had in the country. 

“As an Asian-American woman, I have never experienced as much racism in my life until I moved here,” she wrote. “This country is xenophobic as hell.” 

Coming to Sweden just before the break out of the Covid-19 pandemic, she described several racist “microaggressions”, many seemingly linking her Asian appearance to the origin of Covid-19 in Wuhan, China. 

“I’ve endured everything from verbal attacks to physical intimidation, all explicitly tied to my race,” she added, before describing being “coughed on” by teenage boys, and “tutted at” by old ladies.  

Her post has been liked nearly 20,000 times, and has sparked a lively debate about whether Sweden really is a racist country. 

“I’ve been sitting on this all for the better part of this year, which is when it all escalated,” she told The Local of her decision to go public with her experiences and with photos and videos of those she alleges racially abused her, saying that she had had “incredible difficulties in locating support for hate crime victims”.

The most shocking incidents she described in the posts were the ones she backed up by photos, one showing two young men, who she said had “cornered” her outside a train station in the city center, and then made “obscene gestures, mocking my eyes and flicking me off”. 

She then posted a video of a woman in a face mask, saying “I don’t care a fuck about you, Asian trash”. 

Zhou said that none of the many Swedish commuters at the station had come to her aid while she was being harassed by the two young men, while the police case was dropped after two months before it had even been investigated, with the officers responsible never even securing an interpreter so that they could interview her or contacting the witnesses she had provided. 

Since Zhou posted the photos, several respondent on Twitter have named the two men whose photos she posted. When The Local checked the Facebook account of them, the name was clearly correct. 

When The Local spoke to one of the men on his phone, he said it must be a wrong number and denied knowing about the incident. After The Local sent him the photos Zhou had posted, he removed the profile picture from his Facebook account. 

Zhou’s post has generated angry responses from many on the right in Sweden, with Ivar Arpi, former editor of the radical right news site Bulletin, dismissing her as a “woke activist whose business plan is based around accusing the West for systemic racism”. 

“She’s clearly not someone one should devote much time or thought to,” he continued. “Her credibility is low”. 

He did not, however, suggest that she was a Chinese agent, and, in a linked tweet, acknowledged that East Asians did face racism in Sweden.

Other respondents to Zhou’s post claimed that the men she photographed and the woman in the video she posted did not seem  Swedish. 

READ ALSO: ‘We experienced a racist assault for wearing face masks in Stockholm’

In her post, Zhou said she had decided to keep quiet about her experiences until the success of the Sweden Democrats convinced her that her experiences were symptoms of a little acknowledged underlying racism in Swedish society. 

“For the better part of this year, I’ve been silently raging, biting my tongue, knowing that those bigoted assholes are out and about. With the publication of the new government’s proposals, it is clear as day who this country aims to protect, and who it aims to harm,” she wrote.  “So I don’t give a fuck about keeping quiet anymore.”

She said the “blatantly racist tropes” of the new “absurd right-wing government” would only make racism worse for those who suffered it in Sweden. 

“I’m what the right-wing in Sweden designates as a “good immigrant,” the kind that has earned proximity to whiteness via my high salary and the high amount I pay in taxes,” she wrote. “It is crucial to note, the “good vs. bad” immigrant framing is harmful. All of us are worthy of a safe home.”

“I shudder to imagine how many racist attacks happen to people of color with far less privilege. For those who have reported hate crimes, I wonder how many of them have been ignored.”

Zhou has sent The Local a copy of an official police document announcing their decision to lay down her racial abuse case against the two young men, as well as screenshots of her repeated emails to officers asking for updates. 

Have you had experiences of racism in Sweden? Do you feel Sweden is a racist society, or do you feel that Zhou’s experiences are atypical? We would love to hear from you. Please email us at [email protected]. 

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POLITICS

‘Very little debate’ on consequences of Sweden’s crime and migration clampdown

Sweden’s political leaders are putting the population’s well-being at risk by moving the country in a more authoritarian direction, according to a recent report.

Published: 29 April 2024 08:56 CEST
'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast. 

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

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