• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• Sweden: Skinheads attack migrant families

Sweden: Skinheads attack migrant families

01 May 1995

The village of Valberg in rural western Sweden has seen a series of racist-motivated attacks against a Lebanese family. Following a history of tension between the family and local youths, gangs of skinheads brutally attacked the home of the seven-member family at the end of April. Up to 50 youths gathered outside the family's house to hurl abuse, and when the father went outside to chase them away he was attacked and beaten senseless with an iron bar. His wife was also injured during the assault. The attack was followed by threats from local skinheads that the family's home would be burnt down if they did not leave the area. A few days later, just such an incident occurred in a Stockholm suburb when the apartment of an immigrant Chilean family was destroyed in a firebomb attack. Eddy Weitzel, chairman of the Swedish Chilean Association, said many of his community living in Sweden felt increasingly alienated from society. The government, he went on, "tolerates organized racism" by refusing to ban extreme quasi-political right-wing groups like the White Aryan Resistance (VAM). Interpress, 21.4.95.