Sweden Protesters Try To Break Into Malmo Jewish Center
No Surrender: Jews and supporters gather outside a community center in Malmo, Sweden that was hit by a firebomb attack. Image by getty images
Police in Malmo arrested two people who tried to break into a Jewish community building during a demonstration that featured anti-Semitic slogans.
Five people gathered outside the Jewish community center on Kamrergatan Street in Malmo’s center on March 27 and tried to force their way inside past security, the Sydsvenskan regional daily newspaper reported.
The intruders stopped at the gate, where they voiced insults against Judaism, police officer Linda Pleym told the newspaper.
The two men arrested, who are both 18, were not named in the report. Police released them shortly after questioning and local prosecutors will decide whether to charge the men with trespassing and intimidation, the newspaper reported.
Fred Kahn, president of the Malmo Jewish community, said the suspects also filmed and took pictures of the building before being arrested.
Swedish police recorded 60 hate crimes against Jews in the city in 2012, up from an average of 22 in 2010 and 2011.
About 30 percent of Malmo’s 300,000 residents belong to families of immigrants from Muslim countries, according to city statistics. Radical members of that population are responsible for most of the attacks against Jews, the Jewish community has said.
Malmo has approximately 1,000 Jews.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/03/31/news-opinion/world/malmo-police-arrest-2-for-trying-to-break-into-jewish-community-center#ixzz2xXJQQo3T
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
