55% of hate crimes in Sweden have racist motives: Report
ANKARA
After the extreme Swedish-Danish politician Rasmus Paludan burned a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, outside the Turkish embassy in the Swedish capital Stockholm on Saturday, discussions about hate crimes in the country have once again become topical.
A report published by the Crime Prevention Council, which is attached to the Swedish Ministry of Justice, revealed in 2021 findings on racism and hate crimes against religious groups in the country.
At an overall level, xenophobic and racist hate crimes were the most common of reported hate crimes at 55%, followed by hate crimes against religious groups at 17%, with Muslims being the most targeted, followed by Jews and Christians respectively.
Of all hate crimes against religious groups, 51% were Islamophobic, 27% anti-Semitic and 11% anti-Christian.
The Islamophobic hate crimes — among the few crimes where women were victimized more often than men — mainly consisted of harassment, incitement against an ethnic or national group and unlawful threats.
At the same time, hate crimes against Christians were mostly committed through illegal threats and the victims were often men.
When it comes to anti-Semitic crimes, social media appears to be the primary place where hate crimes against Jews are committed.
Anti-Semitic hate crimes largely consisted of agitation against an ethnic or national group on social media and in public, and most of these cases involved general anti-Semitic messages that were not directed at a specific person.
According to the report, 16% of anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2020 were committed via social media, 15% in public spaces and 14% via SMS or phone.
In hate crimes against Muslims and Jews, women were more targeted than men, while among Christians, mostly men were the primary targets.
Even the 2021 religious freedom report from the US State Department, which cites the figures in Sweden’s report on anti-Muslim hate crimes, says that many hate crimes have not been reported to the police for various reasons.