A total of 3,536 hate crime complaints were submitted to the Swedish police in 2007

Alert DateJune 1, 2007 Country: Sweden Address: Stockholm Racism and discrimination phenomena: Extremism - organised Racist Violence, Anti-migrant/xenophobia, Anti-semitism, Islamophobia, Afrophobia, Anti-roma/zinghanophobia, Religious intolerance, On grounds of other belief
General Type: Racist violence, Racist discourse, Discrimination, Institutional discrimination Groups affected / Interested in: Migrants, Refugees, Roma & Travelers, Muslims, Ethnic minorities, Religious minorities, Linguistic minorities, Asylum seekers Strands: Racism, Statistics Key Areas: Anti-racist Crime Legislation & Implementation, Racist violence - Hate Speech Statistics

Timeline

A total of 3,536 hate crime complaints submitted to the police in 2007 were considered to have a hate crime motive. A xenophobic motive was identified in 2,489 complaints (70 percent), an Islamophobic motive in 206 of the complaints (6 percent), an anti-Semitic motive in 118 complaints (3 percent) and a homophobic motive in 723 complaints (20 percent). Hate crimes occur in the everyday life of the victims, for example close to their homes, at school or even at the work place. 12 percent of all reported hate crimes were ideologically motivated in the sense that the perpetrator may have yelled “white power”, for example, or painted offensive graffiti in the form of swastikas. The distribution according to the type/category of crime related to hate crimes during 2007 are unlawful threats/harassment (35 per cent or almost1,200 complaints) and defamation (17 per cent or nearly 600 complaints), followed by violent offences (21 per cent or about 730 complaints).  The numbers and percentages of cases and complaints of reasonably suspected hate crime perpetrators broken down in accordance to gender is a total of 787 complaints (71 per cent), for a xenophobic motive, 52 (5 per cent) for an Islamophobic motive and 25 complaints (2 per cent) for an Anti-Semitic motive. Among all 3500 hate crimes in 2007; about 12 percent were ideologically motivated. This corresponds to 410 complaints.  The number of ideologically motivated complaints is thus higher concerning crimes with an anti-Semitic motive (35 per cent) in comparison with crimes with a xenophobic motive (10 per cent), an Islamophobic motive (5 per cent) and crimes with a homophobic motive (5 per cent). 
During 2007, 120 complaints were considered to be related to a crime with an anti-Semitic motive. The number of complaints has thus decreased with 12 percent compared to 2006.
One out of three (35 per cent) of these complaints were considered to be ideological, which is similar to the percentage for 2006. The complaints with an Islamophobic motive have decreased with 18 percent in 2007. One-fourth of the Islamophobic complaints are incitement to hatred. The most common types of crimes for Islamophobic hate crimes during 2007 are unlawful threats/harassment (33 per cent) and incitement to hatred (25 per cent).


Source: Sweden/Brottsförebyggande rådet (2008) Hatbrott 2007 – En sammanställning av polisanmälningar med främlingsfientliga, islamofobiska, antisemitiska och homofobiska motiv, http://www.bra.se/