The following article by Rick Noack was posted on the Washington Post website February 20, 2017:
President Trump caused confusion during a Saturday rally in Florida when he said: “You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?” Trump then mentioned the French cities of Nice and Paris and the Belgian capital, Brussels. The three European cities were attacked by terrorists over the past two years.
Although Trump did not explicitly say it, his remarks were widely perceived in the United States and abroad as suggesting that an attack had occurred Friday night in Sweden.
Trump attempted to clarify his remarks, tweeting Sunday: “My statement as to what’s happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden.”
My statement as to what’s happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden.
On Monday, Trump elaborated a bit with another tweet:
Give the public a break – The FAKE NEWS media is trying to say that large scale immigration in Sweden is working out just beautifully. NOT!
Trump probably was referring to an interview with filmmaker Ami Horowitz on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” which started circulating on social media shortly after Trump’s speech in Florida. Horowitz has blamed refugees for what he says is a crime wave in Sweden. The filmmaker’s claims have since come under scrutiny, as Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported Monday. Two Swedish police officers who were interviewed by Horowitz said that their comments had been taken out of context. One of them, Anders Göranzon, accused the filmmaker of being a “madman.”
Such claims by Horowitz and others have driven up Google search traffic for information on Swedish crime statistics in recent weeks. In fact, interest in the issue has never been higher over the past four years.
Trump’s references to Sweden seemed to suggest that the country’s welcoming approach to refugees and its alleged effects on crime rates should be a warning sign. But were the president’s remarks justified?
“Absolutely not,” said Felipe Estrada, a criminology professor at Stockholm University. His response was echoed Monday by multiple other experts who are familiar with Swedish crime statistics.
Overall, Sweden’s average crime rate has fallen in recent years, Estrada said. That drop has been observed for cases of lethal violence and for assaults, two of the most serious categories of crime.
Germany, the other European country that took in similar numbers of refugees per capita in 2015, also has refuted claims that the influx led to an increase in crime. “Immigrants are not more criminal than Germans,” an interior ministry spokesman said in June. Overall, crime levels in Germany declined over the first quarter of 2016, officials said last year.