Alleged rape on Facebook shocks Sweden
2 suspects were from Afghanistan, stoking anger at migrants
Outrage and shock are spreading across Sweden over a case against three men of foreign origin arrested on suspicion of raping a woman and broadcasting it live on Facebook.
Swedish authorities said Wednesday that the case against the unidentified men was “growing stronger” amid an increasing backlash against immigrants in a country that took in more asylum seekers per capita than any other nation in Europe last year.
“There have been cases in Sweden before where crimes have been filmed and publicized on social media but not like this,” said Pontus Melander, chief prosecutor in the case in Uppsala, the city where the alleged incident took place in an apartment Jan. 22.
“I have seen different cases around the world — but not sexual cases,” he added.
The alleged crime in the Scandinavian country, which has one Europe’s highest recorded rates of sexual assaults, was livestreamed on a private Facebook page accessible to about 60,000 people.
It follows a year in which 163,000 people sought asylum in Sweden from conflict zones in North Africa and the Middle East — the most the country of 10 million has ever allowed in and double the number it accepted during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
Neither the victim nor the alleged perpetrators have been named by authorities. Melander said two of the three men arrested were born in Afghanistan and a third was a Swedish citizen, although his birthplace is not pub- licly known.
Investigators have not yet seen the full broadcast, including the part where the alleged gang rape took place, because they are waiting for Facebook to comply with a request to release the footage. Melander successfully argued Wednesday for the men to be detained for two more weeks while the investigation continues.
Prosecutors said the pair from Afghanistan deny taking part in a rape, a crime that carries a sen- tence of two to six years in Sweden. The sentence for aggravated rape is four to 10 years. The Swedish national was detained on suspicion of failing to reveal rape, a lesser crime he also denies. No decision to prosecute has been made.
It is not clear if the two Afghan men are recent asylum seekers. But witness statements published in Swedish news media have stoked anger at migrants as Europe grapples with what to do about hundreds of thousands of people flooding in from predominantly Muslim countries, a crisis that has fueled support for anti-immigration political parties from France to Germany to Holland.
“He tore off her clothes and lay down on top of her,” Josefine Lundgren, one of several witnesses who contacted police shortly after watching the incident happen in real-time, told Swedish media. Other witnesses have since come forward to say that a second, live broadcast showed the victim being forced to deny that she had been assaulted.
“There’s been total outrage about this case in Sweden,” said Jerzy Sarnecky, a criminologist at Stockholm University. “This kind of event fuels the xenophobic discussion.”
Over the summer, police reported several dozen cases of sexual assault by gangs of foreign men at Swedish music festivals. The statements were later withdrawn.
Facebook said the vast majority of people who use Facebook Live do so to come together and share experiences with their friends and family.
“There’s been total outrage about this case in Sweden.” Jerzy Sarnecky, criminologist at Stockholm University