Report shows that nearly 5,800 hate crime cases were reported to the police in 2010
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A total of 3,536 hate crime complaints were submitted to the Swedish police in 2007
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 h...
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Hate crimes with racist, anti-Semitic or Islamophobic motives were identified in 2813 cases in 2007
In July 2008, Brottsförebyggande Rådet (Brå) [The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention] published statistical data regarding hate crimes during 2007 (Report 2008:15). In 2007, hate crimes with xenophobic, anti-Semitic or Islamophobic motives were identified in 2813 police crime reports, which represents an increase of 8 percent by comparison with the previous year. A xenophobic motive was identified in 2,489 complaints, an Islamophobic motive in 206 of the complaints, an...
The Swedish National Council on Crime prevention (Brottsförebygganderådet, Brå) published the annual report on hate crimes in Sweden in 2011 (Hatbrott 2010:12). The report noted that nearly 5,800 hate crime cases were reported to the police. Majority of them, i.e. more than 4,100 cases, were identified as xenophobic/ racial hate crimes. Of those, racial hate crimes reported, 818 or 20 % were identified as Afrophobic, meaning that Afro-Swedes are among the most vulnerable groups of racial hate crimes. This fact is however still neglected in Government policies targeting vulnerable groups to racism. There were 161 police reports of crimes with an anti-Semitic motive and 272 reports of crimes with Islamophobic motives in 2010.
The National Council on Crime Prevention reported that the most common forms of xenophobic or racist motivated hate crimes are violent crimes, unlawful discrimination, hate speech, damage to property such as vandalism/graffiti, unlawful threats, harassment and defamation targeted at individuals and groups
About 97% of all victims of xenophobic/racist hate crimes are the minority groups. The absolute majority of perpetrators of xenophobic/racist hate crimes are the majority groups (77 %) against the minority groups. Only 20% of the perpetrators were other minority groups. The least reported xenophobic/ racist hate crimes (4 %) are committed against the majority group, or people with a Swedish background.
New hate crime motives including Afrophobic and anti-Roma hate crimes were introduced in 2008 since these groups emerged as particularly vulnerable. These categories of hate crimes are presented as merely sub-categories to xenophobic/racist hate crimes. This makes them invisible in the catalogue of the hate crimes. The Centre against Racism has on several occasions discussed the matter with the National Council on Crime Prevention demanding that Afrophobic and anti-Roma hate crimes be separated from racist hate crimes, and be officially acknowledged as independent categories of hate crimes in the same way as Islamophobic, homophobic, transphobic hate crimes.
Source: The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention http://www.bra.se/extra/news/?module_instance=3&id=310assessed 10 July 2010.
