
From Syria to Sweden – 200 voices on escaping the war - vienno
http://pejl.svt.se/syrien200/en/stories
======
staticelf
I am a Swede and can say that SVT is not a trustworthy source of news. Pretty
much no swedish media is. SVT is a bit like Fox news but for the left and we
have other news groups in Sweden that are like Fox news for the right. That is
the state of the Swedish media.

SOURCE: 52% voted for the greens (left) and pretty much the overwhelming
majority of what's left voted red (left) in a recent scientific poll.

[http://jmg.gu.se/aktuellt/Nyheter/fulltext//journalist-11.ci...](http://jmg.gu.se/aktuellt/Nyheter/fulltext//journalist-11.cid1078685)

~~~
croon
That is a gross mischaracterization.

I would describe it simply as a smaller BBC, with all that entails. It's more
like NPR than FOX in regards to bias. And that is an immense difference.

Edit: As you deleted your comment, I'll edit here instead.

I know the party affiliations, and why I made a comparison to a left biased
state sponsored radio network. I still strongly disagree with your comparison
to FOX News. It's a huge difference between being biased and still do largely
good reporting, and being biased and straight up lying daily.

Party affiliation does not inherently imply doctored news reporting or
necessarily even biased reporting. I'm not disagreeing about a bias. I'm
saying your comparison is way off on the magnitude.

~~~
sremani
NPR is polite cousin of MSNBC, but the politics and biases are not that
different.

~~~
croon
I disagree with your scale, but otherwise that was my point in the comparison.

------
d33
Why do refugees need to go to as far as Sweden to escape war? Why wouldn't
they stop at the nearest EU country, or even closer to Syria?

~~~
pawadu
They actually explain this in some stories. For example, some people had
friends and relatives in Sweden. Some choose it because Swedens track record
in human rights.

Also, the nearest EU countries were Turkey and Greece then Italy and Hungary
who don't seem to accept refugees at this point.

~~~
return0
Greece and italy accept and house refugees. They just don't want to stay here.

------
return0
These sentimental pieces do not help. At this point it's fair to say that
europeans know the struggle of (legitimate) refugees.

The actual solution is to end the war in Syria, instead of waiting for the
rest of the country to flee, and then boast about how humane we are.

~~~
tajen
I've always considered moving populations was a crime against humanity because
it stems so many problems. The UN and the UCJ (The Haye) doesn't assume this,
but I wonder whether they've ever considered it. Whether it's Syrians, various
places in Africa, Palestinians, it's often at the root of many wars.

Also, French people think it's our duty to "export peace" to Syria. It's
costing us €10-15bn (source: Our defense cost is €32bn per year), on top of
€6bn new policemen recruited after the attacks. It's €900 per year per person
in age of working when our average yearly revenue is only €22k. We're just
choked. I mean either the UN coordinates the attack and the cost against
Syria, either we shouldn't be there.

It seems like the whole world is involved anyway:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_involvement_in_the_Syr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_involvement_in_the_Syrian_Civil_War#toc)

------
pawadu
My take from the article:

1\. the "Syrian refugees" are actually very different people with different
backgrounds.

2\. most lived the very calm lives until they lost home and family in the war

3\. they seem to be trying to adjust to the new life and a new culture. but
can you really do that without a job and some Swedish friends?

------
DominikR
I read the other day that Sweden had to cancel the Earth Hour event where they
turn of lights for an hour because the last time they did in 2015 many gang
rapes occurred which were committed by refugees. (even 12 year olds were
raped)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Hour#2016](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Hour#2016)

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3499108/Earth-
hour-c...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3499108/Earth-hour-
cancelled-migrant-rape-Swedish-town-refuses-turn-lights-protect-women-
attacks.html)

That's what you get when you let young women decide on anything related to the
nations security. They are the one's who were holding the "refugees are
welcome" signs, they are the ones who overwhelmingly vote for Socialists.

I live by the way in the EU so I'm also affected by all of this. Some might
say it's heartless but if I saw today a women getting raped or beaten by a
refugee on the streets I wouldn't even help her. A year ago she was likely one
of those who was calling people like me (I'm against inviting millions to come
to the EU like Merkel did) a racist in order to shut us up. Now live with the
consequences.

~~~
gambiting
No offence, but dailymail links should be banned on HN. It's just a vile
website that is full of BS on literally any topic it touches. Whatever gets
them most clicks/sold newspapers, basically.

~~~
DominikR
Okay, let's just censor news that you don't like. I on the other hand live in
a EU country that is the main target for these refugees and I can tell you
this stuff (in particular rapes) is real and you calling it BS isn't going to
change the reality of what is going on here.

~~~
petriw
Daily Mail isn't news, it's poorly researched clickbait.

Rape is horrible and I'm certain immigrants also rape, just as the natives do.
But let's not kid ourselves, at least in my home country Sweden the number of
sexual offences (including rape) have not increased significantly over time
despite decades of scaremongering news about them, including on swedish state
tv.

I base this on:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Sweden#Victim_surveys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Sweden#Victim_surveys)
And in Swedish more recent: [https://www.bra.se/bra/brott-och-
statistik/valdtakt-och-sexu...](https://www.bra.se/bra/brott-och-
statistik/valdtakt-och-sexualbrott.html)

We'll see what the numbers for 2015 and 2016 say, but I somehow doubt they'll
show a country in free fall despite 163k asylum seekers in 2015.

~~~
kbart
Statistics is easily tweaked or faked. There are already many cases of police
in Germany and Sweden miss-reporting or covering up sexual offences by
immigrants.

1\. [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-03/german-coverup-
scan...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-03/german-coverup-scandal-
ministry-urged-erasing-rape-monstrous-cologne-migrant-attack-)

2\. [http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/its-not-only-germany-
that...](http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/its-not-only-germany-that-covers-
up-mass-sex-attacks-by-migrant-men-swedens-record-is-shameful/)

3\. [http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/08/german-cops-we-were-
ordere...](http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/08/german-cops-we-were-ordered-to-
remove-the-word-rape-from-migrant-criminal-report/)

~~~
petriw
Statistics can never simply be read from a police database or similar. It
takes serious work by good researchers to compile the data and interpret it.
This is also why you can't compare many crime statistics between countries,
rape being a fairly typical one.

The simple truth is that up until now no one actually cared and that is why it
went unreported. Heck, the new years eve sexual offences will probably
disappear among all the other sexual offences that go on every day that no one
apparently cares about.

Festival groping is hardly a new phenomenon, maybe the new years eve thing is
new but was it a temporary problem or is it a long term issue? No one actually
knows yet.

~~~
jazzyk
>It takes serious work by good researchers to compile the data and interpret
it

Ah, yes. The data need to be "seasonally adjusted" by high priests of the
state, so that we, uneducated peons get the "appropriate" message.

Do you even realize how elitist your statement is? Sexual offence data is not
rocket science, a lot of people can understand it quite well.

In Sweden's case, it would also help if the race/nationality of the attacker
was disclosed (which, I heard, is not allowed in Sweden).

~~~
gambiting
>>Sexual offence data is not rocket science

It is though. The definition of sexual offence changes between countries.
Simplest example being that in some places public urination is a sexual
offence, despite not having anything to do with sex. And because that
definition is not consistent between countries, it cannot be reasonably
compared.

>>n Sweden's case, it would also help if the race/nationality of the attacker
was disclosed

And why would it be? What for? A rapist is a rapist, regardless of their
nationality.

You sound like a tinfoil hat aficionado to me, sorry.

~~~
jazzyk
>public urination is a sexual offence

You think people are idiots and can't distinguish between urination and
groping?

>And why would it be? What for? A rapist is a rapist, regardless of their
nationality

In the context of countries which accepted a lot of immigrants, it is to
either confirm or dispel the claims that the attackers are mostly refugees
from the Middle East.

>You sound like a tinfoil hat aficionado to me, sorry.

Please refrain from ad hominem attacks - it is against HN rules.

I simply want to learn what has caused the increase of rapes. The fact the the
police (and the press) in Sweden were, in many cases, instructed not to report
the race/nationality of attackers - to me - constitutes censorship.

~~~
gambiting
>>You think people are idiots and can't distinguish between urination and
groping?

Well clearly so, because that's exactly how sex offender lists work in some
countries, where there is no distinction made whatsoever.

>>In the context of countries which accepted a lot of immigrants, it is to
either confirm or dispel the claims that the attackers are mostly refugees
from the Middle East.

And my point is, what good does it do to anyone? Criminals should be
persecuted with the same severity, regardless of where they are from.

Let's say that data shows that middle eastern refugees don't rape more than
native citizens. I'm almost certain such raport would be dismissed by
some(look two comments above) as "doctored" or "prepared" by the government
that doesn't want people to know the "truth".

Or let's say that they rape more - What do you want to do in that case? Write
special laws for them? In US, most criminals are black, but you should know
very well that it's both because the are marginalized by the society and
punished harder by the law enforcement, and not because they are black.

That's why I _insist_ that we treat all criminals as criminals, not as "native
criminals" and "middle eastern" criminals etc. There's just no benefit, except
maybe feeding fear against them.

>>Please refrain from ad hominem attacks - it is against HN rules.

You are right, my apologies.

~~~
DominikR
> And my point is, what good does it do to anyone?

If it is found that people from the Middle East rape much more than native
citizens or engage more in certain types of criminal activity that is
destabilising the society then there is something that we as a society can do.

We can send them all back. We can send our soldiers to guard the borders and
not let anyone of them in. That's a simple solution that would work.

I would even approve of forcing those who committed crimes to work until they
fully repaid their victims for all the damage they caused. After that put them
on a plane send them home.

But this is not about equal treatment, the elite and the media feel the need
to obfuscate because they know that people are not going to tolerate this if
they knew the full extent of what is happening.

~~~
gambiting
So....you would basically write special laws for a group of people. There's
plenty of examples how well this approach worked throughout history(it didn't,
or it worked temporarily).

Besides, I find the idea of punishing a whole group of people for the actions
of the few disgusting. I don't know where you are from, but I'm from Poland
originally, and especially in the 90s there was a lot of car theft in Western
Europe done by Polish criminal groups - so Poles got a reputation as car
thieves.

But you would have to be an absolute brainless idiot to say that all Poles are
car thieves. And yet, you are proposing such solution here - assuming that
"middle eastern refugee" group has more rapes - and you want to literally
"send them all back". If you don't see how wrong this approach is, then I
don't think I can help.

~~~
DominikR
No, there's no need to write specific laws.

If we follow the already existing laws strictly then not a single refugee
would qualify for refugee status because they passed through plenty of
countries in which their lives are not threatened.

After that we can decide to financially help support refugees that are
stranded in Turkey and other neighbouring countries to Syria or we can take in
a certain amount that we have carefully vetted to not be dangerous to our
society.

There is nothing inhumane about this approach, for each refugee we house and
feed here we can house and feed 10 in the Middle East. On top of that we
wouldn't have thousands of them drowning every year in the Mediterranean Sea,
because very few would try if they knew that there's no chance that they'll be
able to stay.

Also we would end human trafficking by enforcing our borders. To me this seems
like a win-win for every side.

Regarding the Poles are thieves issue: Stealing cars and rape/murder are not
even remotely comparable issues. One of them is annoying and leads to racist
jokes, the other one can lead to Germans organising/revolting and starting to
indiscriminately kill off anything non German on their territory.

If the government doesn't protect their citizens right to not have their
wive's and children raped then people will get rid of them one way or another,
usually through uncontrolled violence. I'd prefer the government to do this in
a humane way by putting them on a plane and sending them home.

But it wouldn't even have been a problem to restrict the entry of those Poles
who are likely to steal cars. It's just a matter of asking them on the border:
"What are you planning to do here and how are you going to support your self?"
If they can show that they have a job here that can sustain them then you'd
have immediately filtered out many of those that just came to steal.

This is by the way allowed in the EU framework. Each EU country can send you
back to your origin EU country if you cannot prove that you'll be able to
sustain yourself here. Most people do not know this because it's only been
used in a few cases.

------
kartan
It is hard to understand the hard situation that this people has, and is
still, living.

But when I read about how this guy says "As a child, I used to watch a cartoon
on TV. The show featured the main character Nils and his friend Mårten the
goose." I can feel totally related to him. It is just a TV cartoon, but it is
also a treasured memory of Sweden that I had as a kid.

It is worth reading the stories of this people and thanks to this article it
is easier to truly feel their humanity.

------
barpet
Why should Europe feel responsible for these people ? Europe has a ton of
problems with roma people and the poor. Why should a newly integrated Syrian
cook should earn more than a middle aged women in Romania ?

~~~
kartan
> Why should Europe feel responsible for these people?

Because they are human beings. I think than that's more than enough.

BTW Europe has a lot of really big problems with Banks. And that has a lot
bigger impact that anything else in our economy. That's also something
interesting to talk about.

~~~
nostromo123
"Because they are human beings" is a naive answer.

My parents have worked 45 years as teachers in Romania, and now they get the
equivalent of 300$ monthly _combined_ in pension money. Romania is also not
such a cheap country as you'd think.

Now, seeing as how even non-refugee migrants from typical holiday countries in
North Africa get lots more money than that per month in the German welfare
system, we have two options for thinking about the situation:

1) Conclude that my parents are not human beings, so it is right that they
should receive less money than the migrants in richer countries

2) My parents should also be entitled to the same money, and Europe should
feel responsible for them, too

Which one do you pick?

~~~
petriw
Germany is free to spend their own money how they see fit. For example, by
sending money to Romania via the EU budget.

Perhaps Germany should instead focus on the pensioners in their country who
have worked hard for 45 years and now live on the minimum pension.

~~~
nostromo123
"Perhaps Germany should instead focus on the pensioners in their country who
have worked hard for 45 years and now live on the minimum pension."

Yeah, I agree -- that's exactly what should be done! :-) A great part of the
Germans' anger at the way politics is dealing with the refugee crisis is the
fact that, for decades, they were told that there was no money for schools /
infrastructure / pensions / child rearing / etc. Now, suddenly, there's
BILLIONS of € available for people who have never (and probably will never)
paid into the social state money pot.

It's totally understandable that this creates resentment, even without taking
into account the other issues surrounding the situation (culture clash,
religious beliefs seen as a "higher law", slowly creeping no-go areas -- which
don't exist, according to the government :P, etc.).

------
redsummer
The Swedish press and government will publish anything positive about Syrians
in Sweden. But they will not publish anything about the massive increase in
rapes.

~~~
bobowzki
references?

~~~
kbart
_" On Monday, police in the Swedish city of Östersund advised women not to go
outdoors alone following a string of public assaults and sex attacks in the
past three weeks"_[1]. Crime increase is huge, just google for independent
news sources that were not silenced by governments.

[http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-
economy/cologne...](http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-
economy/cologne-is-every-day-europes-rape-epidemic/news-
story/e2e618e17ad4400b5ed65045e65e141d)

~~~
eveningcoffee
Please be careful with so called independent news sources. There is a lot of
noise around Sweden by the foreign state controlled media manipulation
organizations.

