Swedish PM Meets With Military to Address Gang Violence

Facts

• On Friday, Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced that the nation's army would support in addressing a recent surge in gang violence — that has killed at least 12 people in September alone — following a meeting with armed forces and police officers.¹
• This comes after Kristersson gave a rare televised address Thursday to discuss the issue after two people were killed in separate shootings in Stockholm the day before. Early Thursday morning, a woman in her 20s was also killed after a bomb blasted her Uppsala home.²
• While Kristersson has cautioned that Sweden's laws need to be altered to allow increased military support, starting next week, the army will begin supporting police forces with explosives, analysis and logistics, and forensic work.¹
• Kristersson said that “Sweden has never before seen anything like this”, adding that other European countries aren’t having the same level of problems. He said that Sweden would “hunt down” and “defeat” gangs while stressing the severity of the situation.³
• Last year, Kristersson formed a center-right minority government with the help of the populist Sweden Democrats, ending eight years of Social Democrat control.⁴

Sources: ¹BBC News, ²Al Jazeera, ³Upi and ⁴Reuters.

Narratives

• Right narrative, as provided by The telegraph. Sweden is being transformed before our very eyes — and not for the better. A once beautiful and safe country is now being ravaged by rampant gang violence and a skyrocketing rape rate. Native Swedes aren’t committing these crimes, and there’s an obvious elephant in the room that many people are afraid to call out for politically correct reasons. The fact is that unfettered migration is turning Sweden, and other European nations, into third-world crime zones.
• Left narrative, as provided by A decolonial view. People from the right are trying to take power by using racist dog whistles about gang violence to demonize migrants and stoke fear. Sweden is a place for all people, but far-right nationalists seek to exclude people from Sweden and marginalize vulnerable populations. Instead of blaming migrants for gang violence, politicians should focus on addressing the root causes of violence, such as systemic racism, poverty, and discrimination.

Predictions