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Again and again there are shootings, bystanders are killed. The repressive drug policy is probably partly to blame.
These are the loveliest days of the year: in the warm midsummer weeks, Sweden celebrates extensively. Schools close for the long holidays with traditional festivals. The otherwise rather reserved Swedes enjoy the bright nights together, when the sun only disappears briefly behind the horizon.
In Sweden, even self-consumption of small amounts of cannabis is criminalised.
Again and again, however, the exuberant atmosphere is disturbed by the noise of sirens: police cars and ambulances are called out to emergencies that also have something to do with the increasing violence in the drug scene. Organized gangs in the suburbs of Sweden’s major cities are fighting ever more ruthlessly for supremacy in the lucrative trafficking of illicit substances.
Zero tolerance drug policy
Unlike many other countries, Sweden has tightened its drug policy in recent years, says Björn Johnson, who teaches on the subject at Malmö University. “In Sweden, even self-consumption of small amounts of cannabis is criminalized. That ties up enormous resources of the police, »emphasizes Johnson.
The drug policy, geared entirely to repression, together with socially divided suburbs, in which up to 90 percent of the population has a migration background, has now contributed to the escalation of violence.
Legend:
Prefab buildings built in the early 1970s characterize the image of the Stockholm suburb of Farsta. The majority of the 45,000 people living here have a migration background.
srf/Bruno Kaufmann
About twenty minutes south of picturesque central Stockholm is the suburb of Farsta. A good 45,000 people live here in the high-rise buildings and prefabricated buildings, most of which were built more than 50 years ago – at the height of the Swedish industrial boom.
Two passers-by shot
Just outside the subway station last week, in broad daylight, two young men appeared with submachine guns and shot passers-by, including a sixty-year-old woman.
“I was about to unlock my bike and ride away when I heard shots and suddenly felt pain in my left knee,” she says on the radio. The woman was hit from a distance of almost 80 meters and survived.
Legend:
An uninvolved 45-year-old photographer and a 15-year-old schoolboy were killed in the shooting.
Imago/Claudio Bresciani/TT
A 15-year-old student and a 45-year-old photographer who got in the way of the gunmen lost their lives. The assassins were arrested after a chase. Nothing is known about the motive for the attack. A demonstration of power by a drug cartel is suspected.
It is an absurd situation, the likes of which we used to only know from hearsay. That must have an end.
Flowers, photos, letters and candles at the scene of the crime are now reminiscent of the bloody deed, which, because of its ruthlessness, once again drew the attention of Swedish politicians to the escalating gang crime. The conservative Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson also visited the crime scene in Farsta on this day.
Legend:
Flowers at the crime scene commemorate the bloody deed.
srf/Bruno Kaufmann
Prime Minister announces even more hardness
“It’s an absurd situation that we used to only know from hearsay in distant countries,” he said. “That must have an end.” Kristersson has governed the country with the support of the right-wing Sweden Democrats since last autumn.
Similar to the previous Social Democratic government, Kristersson is trying to react with a heavy hand to the increasing violence: with more police, harsher penalties and an even more repressive drug policy.
In Europe, Sweden currently holds the inglorious top spot in two areas: nowhere else do so many people die from the use of firearms as here. And nowhere else do so many die from drug overdoses.
Legend:
SRF/Bruno Kaufmann
The problems in Sweden have to do with the political culture there: people like to agree on a certain government policy, but it is often quite radical. In the 1980s, for example, there was a switch from a very liberal to a very repressive drug policy, and in migration policy, a policy that was very integration-oriented was replaced by a policy that did little to promote integration. With this political system, it is difficult to find a middle ground – and Sweden is now getting the pay for it.
Although the population supports the repressive action against drugs and criminals, there is also a feeling of helplessness. In the last elections, a right-wing government came to power that had promised rapid action to curb violence. But the opposite is the case: the violence has increased in recent weeks. Sweden needs long-term solutions and better cooperation between the parties to address the issues. But that is not foreseeable at the moment. (Bruno Kaufmann)