Riots hit Swedish capital days after Trump remarks

Washington DC, Feb. 22: Riots broke out in a predominantly immigrant neighborhood in the northern suburbs of Stockholm just two days after US President Donald Trump sparked outcry and confusion by seeming to incorrectly imply that immigrants had perpetrated a recent spate of violence in Sweden.

According to the Washington Post, a crowd in Rinkeby neighborhood burned about half a dozen cars, vandalised several shopfronts and threw rocks at police. Some reports suggested that the Monday clashes started when police arrested a suspect and people started throwing stones at them. Rinkeby was also the scene of riots in 2010 and 2013.

Mr Trump during a Saturday rally in Florida had said “look what’s happening last night in Sweden” as a reference to a supposed frightening security episode in the country. The President clarified his remarks a day after on Twitter saying that he drew his claim about immigrant violence in Sweden from a Fox News segment in which two Swedish police officers were interviewed.

Fox News, a US channel that has been cited favorably by Trump, ran a report about alleged migrant-related crime problems in the country. A White House spokeswoman had said Mt Trump had been referring generally to rising crime, not a specific incident in the Scandinavian country.

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom appeared to respond to Mr Trump by posting on Twitter an excerpt of a speech in which she said democracy and diplomacy “require us to respect science, facts and the media”.

Her predecessor was less circumspect. “Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound,” ex-foreign minister Carl Bildt Tweeted.

Sweden’s crime rate has fallen since 2005 even as it has taken in hundreds of thousands of immigrants from wartorn countries like Syria and Iraq.