Riots grip Stockholm suburbs after police shooting

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22622909

Rioters have lit fires and stoned emergency services in the suburbs of Stockholm for the third night in a row after a man was shot dead by police.

Incidents were reported in at least nine suburbs of the Swedish capital and police made eight arrests.

On Sunday night, more than 100 cars were set alight, Swedish media report.

Police in the deprived, largely immigrant suburb of Husby shot a man dead last week after he reportedly threatened to kill them with a machete.

The founder of a local youth group told Swedish media the riots were a reaction to “police brutality”.

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt told reporters on Tuesday that Sweden would not be intimidated by rioters.

‘Opportunistic’

On Tuesday night, cars were torched in western and southern Stockholm, and stones were thrown at police officers and firefighters. One area affected, Rinkeby, saw similar rioting in 2010.

Kjell Lindgren of the Stockholm police told Aftonbladet newspaper that the unrest had spread from the original rioting in Husby.

“It feels like people are taking the opportunity in other areas because of the attention given to Husby,” he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Reinfeldt said: “We’ve had two nights with great unrest, damage, and an intimidating atmosphere in Husby and there is a risk it will continue.

“We have groups of young men who think that that they can and should change society with violence. Let’s be clear: this is not okay. We cannot be ruled by violence.”

More than 80% of Husby’s 12,000 or so inhabitants are from an immigrant background, and most are from Turkey, the Middle East and Somalia.

Mr Reinfeldt said the situation in the district had been improving in recent years, with more jobs being created and a falling crime rate.

‘Monkey’ slur

However, local people accused the police of racism.

Rami al-Khamisi, a law student and founder of the youth organisation Megafonen, told the Swedish edition of online newspaper The Local that he had been insulted racially by police. Teenagers, he said, had been called “monkeys”.

He said the crowd was reacting to a “growing marginalisation and segregation in Sweden over the past 10, 20 years” from both a class and a race perspective.

Justice Minister Beatrice Ask said anyone who felt mistreated by police should file a report.

An investigation is under way into the shooting of a man, 69, last Monday after police were called out to a home in Husby where the man was allegedly brandishing a machete.

Police say they tried unsuccessfully to negotiate with the man after learning a woman was inside the flat along with him. They then stormed the flat.

Swedish salmon sales ‘breached EU ban’ over dioxins

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22446780

Firms in Sweden have sold about 200 tonnes of Baltic salmon in Europe despite an EU ban targeting toxic chemicals in fish, officials say.

The ban does not apply to Baltic salmon sold to domestic consumers in Sweden, Finland and Latvia. But the sellers are required to give advice about safe limits for consumption, set by the EU.

Dioxins found in Baltic herring and salmon prompted the EU ban in 2002.

A French firm imported 103 tonnes of Swedish salmon, but no longer does so.

Pecheries Nordiques told the AFP news agency that its tests had found no problems with the fish, imported in 2011 and 2012. “Nobody told us it was illegal,” chief executive Francois Agussol said.

Jan Sjoegren of Sweden’s National Food Agency told the BBC that Baltic salmon had also been exported illegally to Denmark and the Netherlands from Sweden.

The agency has alerted the European Commission, which deals with national food safety authorities.

A firm in Karlskrona has been reported to the Swedish customs authorities over the salmon exports, and a firm in Hammaroe is also being investigated, Mr Sjoegren said.

Dioxin hazard

The latest alert about Baltic salmon exports follows a horsemeat contamination scandal in the EU which affected many countries.

“We don’t think more salmon is being exported now, but because of the horsemeat scandal we are stepping up action on food fraud,” Mr Sjoegren said.

Sweden’s National Food Agency says the average intake of dioxins among adult Swedes is well below the “tolerable weekly intake” set by the EU.

Children and young women, it adds, should especially limit their consumption of wild Baltic fish because dioxins pose the most risk to babies and young children.

Dioxins spread by incineration and chemical pollution can accumulate in the body over years and can trigger cancer or reproductive abnormalities.

The European Food Safety Authority says that, on average, Baltic herring and wild Baltic salmon are respectively 3.5 and five times more contaminated with dioxins than non-Baltic herring and farmed salmon.