July 5, 2016

Dozens Of Swedish Women Complain Of Sexual Assaults At Music Festival From Foreign Men



A police officer at a Bravalla Festival campsite in Norrkoping, Sweden, last weekend.
CreditIzabelle Nordfjell/TT News Agency, via Reuters

[From article]
The Swedish police said on Tuesday that they were investigating reports that dozens of young women and girls were sexually assaulted at two music festivals in Sweden last weekend.
The police said there had been five reports of rape and 12 reports of sexual molestation at the Bravalla Festival in Norrkoping, about 100 miles southwest of Stockholm, while 32 sexual assaults had been reported atPutte i Parken, a music festival in Karlstad, about 190 miles west of Stockholm.
Girls and women at the festival in Karlstad said they had been groped by boys and men, Inspector Leif Nystrom of the Karlstad Police Department said in a phone interview. Most were under 18 years old, and three were under 15.
“These were reports of women being touched in unwanted places, such as on their breasts and on their bottoms and inside their underwear,” he said.
The police have been examining seven suspects, six of them foreigners, whose ages range from under 18 to 35, Inspector Nystrom said; no arrests have been made.
[. . .]



The Swedish police have already been under scrutiny. The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter accused the police of failing to publicize details about sexual assaults at a festival in Stockholm last summer until the newspaper drew attention to the episode. The newspaper also accused the authorities of failing to warn the public ahead of the festival that similar attacks had taken place in 2014 and suggested that the police were trying to avoid an anti-immigrant backlash.
In Germany, the police have been investigating reports of dozens of sexual assaults in the western city of Cologne on New Year’s Eve. The police said the attackers appeared to have “a North African or Arabic” appearance, heightening tensions over migrants.
Sweden and Germany have been among the most welcoming European countries for refugees. But in recent months, Sweden has been tightening its asylum rules.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/06/world/europe/swedish-police-investigate-over-40-reports-of-rape-and-groping-at-2-music-festivals.html?_r=0

Swedish Police Investigate Over 40 Reports of Rape and Groping at 2 Music Festivals
By DAN BILEFSKY and CHRISTINA ANDERSON
JULY 5, 2016

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