Welcome to Sanctuary Sweden! by Judith Bergman
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13016/sanctuary-sweden
- Feras, an illegal alien to begin with, and a convicted felon, was allowed to stay in Sweden for the sole reason that he committed a violent hate crime against Swedish Jews. This despite the fact that Sweden had rejected his asylum request, and he therefore lacked any legal right to stay in the country.
- The precedent that this case establishes is highly disturbing: If you commit crimes against Jews that can “be perceived as a serious political crime directed against other Jews,” then you might be eligible for asylum in Sweden. The rights of Sweden’s vulnerable Jews have apparently ceased to matter.
In Sweden, and perhaps other places as well, it appears that that the “human rights” of foreign aspiring murderers are more important than the human rights of law-abiding citizens.
Are you in a European country illegally, flouting your deportation order and committing arson? No problem. If the country to which you are to be returned might conceivably harm you, instead you are welcome to stay in Sweden, commit more crimes and harm Swedes.
A Swedish Court of Appeal recently overturned the deportation ruling against one of three convicted perpetrators of an arson attack against the synagogue of Gothenburg in December 2017, on the grounds that it would be in contravention of his “fundamental human rights”.
The 22-year old Arab man from Gaza, known as Feras, was in Sweden illegally when he committed the attack. His asylum request had been rejected by the Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket); he had apparently been told to leave the country, but he did not. For reasons that are unclear, he was not held for deportation, but still walking around freely in Sweden.
Feras used that freedom to participate in an attack on the Gothenburg synagogue. Approximately 10-15 other young men, of whom only three were charged, joined him. It seems that while young Jews were gathered for a party in an adjacent building, Feras and his friends threw burning objects at cars parked inside the synagogue fence. No one was hurt and the fires were quickly extinguished by rain, leaving only marginal material damage. The court therefore refused to categorize the crime as attempted murder, as the prosecution had requested. Both the lower court and the Court of Appeal did find, however, that the arson attack constituted an anti-Semitic hate crime.
Previously, the lower court had convicted Feras of “grossly unlawful threats and attempted serious damage” and had sentenced him to two years in prison and subsequent deportation. The Court of Appeal nevertheless said that Feras “…committed grossly unlawful threats with the intention of violating members of the Jewish congregation, but that the act can also be perceived as a serious political crime directed against other Jews.”
“Given the possible interest of Israel in the matter and the insecure situation prevailing at the border crossings to Gaza and the West Bank and in the areas themselves, the Court of Appeals considers there is reasonable reason to fear that NN’s fundamental human rights would not be safeguarded if he were expelled to Palestine. The Court of Appeal therefore rejects the prosecutor’s request for deportation…”
The court also referred to reports concerning human rights and democracy in Israel and “Palestine” by Sweden’s Foreign Ministry.
The court, in other words, speculated that because Feras tried to burn Jews, which “can also be perceived as a serious political crime directed against other Jews,” Israel has a security interest in questioning him. For that reason alone — with no evidence or details set forth — returning him to the region of Israel and Gaza would supposedly be in contravention of his “fundamental human rights”.
The Court of Appeals’ ruling meant that Feras, an illegal alien to begin with, and a convicted felon, was allowed to stay in Sweden for the sole reason that he committed a violent hate crime against Swedish Jews. This despite the fact that Sweden had rejected his asylum request, and he therefore lacked any legal right to stay in the country. After he finishes serving his two years in prison, he will be out, and free possibly to commit new hate crimes against Jewish citizens in Sweden.
The precedent that this case establishes — if the case is not appealed and reversed by the Supreme Court — is disturbing: If you commit crimes against Jews that can “be perceived as a serious political crime directed against other Jews,” then you might be eligible for asylum in Sweden. The rights of Sweden’s vulnerable Jews have apparently ceased to matter.
Actually, no Swedish citizens’ rights appear to matter in the Swedish court system anymore. In 2017, a report showed that 75% of foreigners who were sentenced to prison and subsequent deportation for serious crimes were nevertheless set free after serving their sentences and allowed to stay in Sweden for a variety of reasons. In the years 2000-2014, Swedish courts did not even sentence to be deported 20% of convicted foreign rapists, who were registered to the same address in Sweden. For pedophile rapists the number was even lower: 17%. According to more recent statistics, 9 out of 10 convicted foreigners in Sweden are not deported.
The problem extends to terrorists as well. In 2017, for example, a Syrian who arrived in Sweden as a “refugee” in 2015 was acquitted in court of attacking Shia Muslims with firebombs. However, having said in monitored conversations that he saw himself as a jihadist who wanted to become a martyr, and considering that he had been in touch with ISIS, Swedish intelligence evidently deemed him too dangerous to stay in Sweden. The immigration authorities sought to have him deported to Syria, but they did not succeed. It seems the law does not permit his deportation to Syria: he risked being arrested or executed there. Instead, he was also released to walk freely around in Malmö.
In Sweden, and perhaps other places as well, it appears that that the “human rights” of foreign aspiring murderers are more important than the human rights of law-abiding citizens.
Judith Bergman is a columnist, lawyer and political analyst.
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