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So far, it is a proposal that will be put on the table of the municipal board on Wednesday, but since it has the support of a large majority of parties, it will most likely be approved.
The initiative came from the Social Democrats and the local councilor Viktoria Tryggvadottir Rolka. Since then, the ruling Alliance parties have resisted, as have the Left and the Green Party.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, wants the analysis of the situation and the scope of the threat image to also include “the autonomous Islamist and pro-violence environment in Gothenburg.”
The Swedish Democrats, for their part, want to decide on “an analysis of the current situation of the threat landscape between the different ethnic and religious groups in Gothenburg.”
The original proposal refers to the description of the situation of “right-wing extremism / white power and surrounding environments” that the Swedish National Defense College published on 2 September.
City Councilor Viktoria Tryggvadotttir Rolka says she opened her eyes to the problem herself when she saw SVT’s Assignment Review program two years ago about the ambitions of the so-called alternative right movement in Sweden.
Viktoria Tryggvadottir Rolka, city councilor for the Social Democrats in Gothenburg.
Photo: Jesper Hallén / Social Democrats
– Not least, I reacted to the amount of money that is here, and when the report came in from the Swedish National Defense College, it confirmed precisely this, which is a completely new form of radicalization that we have not seen before. It wasn’t just the 90s kids in boots and bomber jackets who screamed, he says.
– What we read now is much more based on the individual, it is lonely young people who are drawn to these online environments where people are almost jokingly dehumanized.
What do you want with the proposal?
– My assessment is that we have begun to gain knowledge about religious extremism and we are dealing with gang crime, but here we know very little. We know that Anton Lundin Pettersson in Trollhättan was one of them. Breivik was there, and as researcher Magnus Ranstorp and several others point out, there is a security threat against people of foreign descent, against Jews and Muslims, that there is a need for protection. We can’t just let that report go unnoticed.
In the proposal, the parties write that the Social Resources Committee “will propose protective measures to protect Gothenburg residents who are at risk of being exposed to threats or violence” from the radical nationalist environment.
What do you think the police are not doing already?
– I’m not the right person to say what to do, but at least understanding what it looks like in Gothenburg and what Social Resource does to assess protection needs would be valuable. I can imagine everything from improving information to parents, how we improve conversations about this at school and with parent groups about what their children are doing online. Do you need more cameras in religious locations? We know, for example, that the Jewish community is forced to spend a lot of money on its surveillance.
Associate Professor Magnus Ranstorp and Analyst Filip Ahlin, both from the Center for Asymmetric Studies on Threats and Terrorism at the Swedish National Defense College, recently presented the report “From the Nordic Resistance Movement to the Alternative Right: A Study of Nationalist Environments radicals in Sweden “.
Photo: Jonas Ekströmer / TT
For this reason, the Democratic Party wants the threats from Islamists and autonomous movements to be analyzed at the same time. The party writes that “dynamics among extremist media often result in violence and threats among extremist media. The dynamics among extremist media also affect propaganda, recruitment and various types of actions. “
Why analyze the radical nationalist environment?
– I am very happy that almost the entire party has joined, says City Councilor Viktoria Tryggvadottir Rolka.
– But I think it is a shame to confuse this with another form of extremism. We have a good view of the MRI and these pronounced clumps, although it is also growing. But this is from another dimension. Around the groups that the Democrats mention, we have a continuous work with concrete assignments. Unfortunately, they mix apples and pears.
The description of the situation by the Swedish National Defense College reviews known facts and representatives of radical nationalism and Nazism in Sweden. However, there is no new information specifically about Gothenburg.
Tryggvadottir Rolka still believes that the municipality should act.
– If you want to be rude, then this is of course a state problem, something for our law enforcement authorities. But if there are threats to the safety of parts of the population of Gothenburg, we, as the political leaders of the municipality, have a responsibility to do what we can, in collaboration with the authorities who are experts.
