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Inquiry recommends making it easier to search Swedish schoolchildren

A new inquiry on safety at school recommends that schools be forced to report students who commit crimes on campus to police, as well as being given increased powers to carry out bodily searches and exclude unauthorised visitors.

Published: 6 March 2024 12:48 CET

Inquiry recommends making it easier to search Swedish schoolchildren

Leader of the inquiry, Jonas Trolle, presenting the report alongside School Minister Lotta Edholm. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

The report was handed over to Minister of Education Lotta Edholm by the government’s special investigator Jonas Trolle, head of the Centre for Preventing Violent Extremism (CVE), on Wednesday.

As well as recommending that schools be given increased powers to carry out bodily searches, it proposes that they be given the possibility to search “bags and other items within the school grounds”, with specially designated staff appointed to carry out these checks.

A first interim report last summer proposed that the centre be tasked with supporting municipalities, social services and other actors to prevent school attacks.

The inquiry was originally set up by the previous Social Democrat government in a response to a number of school attacks which resulted in deaths and injuries to both teachers and students.

The current government has broadened the inquiry’s remit since then to include more types of crime, arguing that it is of benefit to society to be able to identify children and young people at risk of ending up in criminal networks at an earlier stage.

The inquiry’s final conclusions will be presented by December 20th, 2024, after which the report and its proposals will be sent out for consultation to the relevant government agencies or organisations, municipalities and other stakeholders, who can submit responses.

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'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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