In January 2015
The New York Times
denied that there are "no-go-zones" -- areas that are not under the
control of the state and are ruled according to sharia law -- dominated
by certain immigrant groups in some urban areas in Western Europe. The
American newspaper mentioned this author, alongside writers such as
Steven Emerson and
Daniel Pipes,
for spreading this alleged falsehood. The article was published shortly
after Islamic terrorists had massacred the staff of the satirical
magazine
Charlie Hebdo in Paris on January 7, 2015. Other established media outlets such as the magazine
The Atlantic also dismissed claims of no-go-zones.
Fox News issued an unusual
on-air apology
for allowing its anchors and guests to repeat the suggestion that there
are Muslim "no-go zones" in European countries such as Britain and
France.
Regarding the subject of "
no-go-zones,"
this is largely a question of semantics. If you say that there are some
areas where even the police are afraid to go, where the country's
normal, secular laws barely apply, then it is indisputable that such
areas now exist in several Western European countries. France is one of
the hardest hit: it has a large population of Arab and African
immigrants, including millions of Muslims.
I have been writing about the problems in Sweden and the rest of
Europe for many years. The problems are unfortunately all too real. Here
are a few facts:
Sweden surpassed
ten million
inhabitants in early 2017. The recent population growth is almost
entirely due to mass immigration. If present demographic trends
continue, in a few decades native Swedes could easily become a minority
in their own country. The economist
Tino Sanandaji suggests that this transformation could happen within the coming generation.
Statistics from January 2017 indicate that for people born in Sweden,
the unemployment rate is 4.3%. Yet for people born abroad, the
unemployment rate is a staggering five times higher, at 22.1%. This
constitutes a huge economic and social burden for the taxpayers. The
famous Swedish welfare state has been quietly cut back for many years.
In an essay published in February 2016, Stockholm police inspector
Lars Alvarsjö
warned that the Swedish legal system is close to collapse. The influx
of asylum seekers and ethnic gangs has overwhelmed the country and its
understaffed police force. In many suburbs, criminal gangs have taken
control and determine the rules. The police, fire brigades and ambulance
personnel in these areas are routinely met with violent attacks.
Malmö,
Sweden's third-largest city, houses over 300,000 people, as of 2017.
Despite its modest size, the town has a crime rate equal to that of
vastly larger cities. The local police are barely able to investigate
murders.
Less serious crimes often go unpunished. Malmö probably has the highest
percentage of Muslim immigrants of any city in Scandinavia. The most
Islamic city in Scandinavia also happens to be the most criminal and the
most violent.
In November 2016, Malmö's chief prosecutor Ola Sjöstrand publicly
admitted that his office was approaching a total collapse in terms of
criminal investigations. "
If people
are hit by crimes which then aren't investigated, they will lose faith
in the rule of law," Sjöstrand told the regional newspaper
Sydsvenskan.
During New Year's Eve celebrations at the beginning of 2017, parts of central Malmö resembled a
war zone.
Young immigrants shouted "Jihad!" while throwing fireworks at people.
Swedish teenagers gathered in a large group to avoid being robbed.
A janitor in Malmö was shot and sustained life-threatening injures while
clearing snow
in February 2017. Police detained several suspects, understood to be
linked to gang violence, for questioning. A 15-year-old boy was arrested
on suspicion of attempted murder.
Meanwhile, officials at a local electrical firm
announced that they would no longer expose their staff to risk by taking jobs in Malmö; there is just too much violent crime in the city.
Beginning in March 2017, the emergency ward at the
hospital
in Malmö will lock the doors at night. This is a security precaution
that became necessary due to repeated violent threats from certain gangs
or clans against patients and staff.
In
July 2015,
the police in Malmö asked for assistance from the national police to
stop the wave of violence. Apparently, even that response was not
enough. In
January 2017,
the police chief, Stefan Sintéus, publicly appealed to residents in
Malmö for help in containing violent crime and deadly gang shootings:
"Help us to tackle the problems. Cooperate with us."
Peter Springare,
a police officer in the town of Örebro in central Sweden, finally
vented his frustration in February 2017. Migrants are to blame for the
vast majority of serious crime in Sweden, causing the police force to
become overloaded, he wrote on Facebook. When dealing with drug crimes,
rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, murders, extortion or violence
against the police, the suspected perpetrators very often have names
such as Ali, Mahmoud or Mohammed. They usually have a family background
from Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Afghanistan or Somalia. Others do not have
valid papers.
Gothenburg, Sweden's second largest city, has been for several years one of the
most important
recruitment centers in Europe for jihadists seeking to join the
terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). A survey carried
out in 2016 showed that about one in nine school students aged 12-18 in
certain Gothenburg suburbs openly
expressed sympathy with militant Islamic groups.
Nordstan in Gothenburg is one of the largest shopping malls in Sweden, located in the heart of the city. 3,250
crimes
were reported to the police from Nordstan in 2016. That number is from a
single shopping mall in one year. Aggressive groups of Muslim
immigrants, especially young men from North Africa, Syria or
Afghanistan, partly dominate the mall. "I've had people in front of me
that look like they are 35, but who claim to be 15. I can't prove
they're lying so we have to release them," Rikard Sörensen from the
police
said.
Stockholm suburbs such as Husby, Rinkeby and Tensta house large
concentrations of recent immigrants. These districts are riddled with
crime, violence and social problems. The Swedish police have repeatedly
been attacked by criminal gangs there, even with
hand grenades.
One day in December 2016, shopkeepers in
Husby
closed their stores as a protest. Salam Kurda is the chair of the local
shopkeepers' association. He says he has had enough after his shop was
burgled. Politicians and the police have abandoned Husby to the
criminals, states Kurda, who plans to give up his shop. He says it is
not profitable and he doesn't feel safe.
In December 2016, the American Jewish documentary filmmaker
Ami Horowitz told
the story
of his venture into Husby. A few seconds after they arrived, five men
approached them. They said "You guys gotta get out of here right now."
The film crew, being Swedish, turned around and ran for it. Horowitz
decided to stay and try to figure this thing out with the men.
The five men then immediately attacked Horowitz, punching, choking
and kicking him. Nobody came to his aid, even though this attack took
place in a public area outside Stockholm. Horowitz recalls his
assailants saying something in Arabic as they beat him to the ground.
"Let's define what a 'no-go area' means, really, at least in Sweden," Horowitz says.
"What's interesting is, there's an actual debate out
there whether or not these places even exist, right? You go to CNN, the
BBC, and you listen to people discuss no-go areas in France, in Belgium,
in Sweden, in Germany. And there's an actual debate whether this is
real or the figment of the conservative imagination. I can tell you for a
fact they exist. And in Sweden what that means is, and this is what the
police tell me, they use the words 'no-go area.' They said, in
their words, 'If we're chasing a suspect, and they cross into this no-go
area, we simply stop pursuit.' And if we want to enter this area, we
have to go in with an armed convoy, as if you're going into like the
kill zone in Afghanistan."
In 2014, the Swedish police themselves estimated that there were 55
areas in which they are no longer able to uphold law and order. That
number is
increasing. The country also experiences shocking levels of
violence against ambulance personnel in some areas.
Swedish
ambulance personnel want gas masks and bulletproof vests to protect
their staff against the escalating attacks, similar to equipment used by
staff working in war zones.
In February 2017, the local police chief Erik Åkerlund in Botkyrka near Stockholm
denied that "no-go zones" exist in Sweden. This claim does not sound very credible.
When dissident writers such as this author wrote about these issues
10-15 years ago, the real problems we raised were falsely dismissed as
the "xenophobia" of alleged "right-wing extremists."
Unfortunately, the "multicultural" problems in Sweden have grown so
large and visible that some international media now regularly write
about them. Swedish authorities apparently find this hugely
embarrassing. They try to conceal this unpleasant reality as much as
possible. In 2016, the Swedish
embassy in London complained that Britain's
Daily Mail newspaper was running a campaign against Sweden's immigration policy.
In February 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump made some critical
remarks about the situation in Sweden, regarding immigration and
security. This triggered protests from the Swedish government and the
mass media. At the same time, violent riots once again erupted in
Rinkeby, a Stockholm suburb with many Muslim immigrants. A Swedish press
photographer was assaulted by around 15 people when arriving in Rinkeby
to report on the
riots.
Cars burn during a riot in Stockholm, on February 20, 2017. (Image source: YouTube/gladbecker82 video screenshot
|
Two leading politicians from the Sweden Democrats
supported Trump's comments in the
Wall Street Journal. Immigration, they
argued, has indeed caused major problems in Sweden.
In Malmö, violent crime is no longer limited to districts such as Rosengård. Gang-related
shootings happen in different parts of Malmö, and in other cities such as Gothenburg.
A survey from 2016 indicated that
nearly half
of all Swedish women are afraid to go outside after dark. 46% of women
feel very unsafe or somewhat unsafe when they exercise alone in the dark
-- an indication that there is a widespread sense of fear and
uncertainty across much of the country, not just in a few urban areas.
"Feminist" Sweden has very high
rape rates.
Swedish women have never had more feminism, and have never been less safe.
In January 2017, Magnus Olsson, a politician from the Sweden Democrats in Malmö,
suggested
that the military should be deployed in the city. "There is a great
lack of police officers in Sweden and Malmö. For this reason, it is
perhaps time to let the military and police stand together to
reestablish order in the country," he
said.
Sweden's military forces have been
drastically reduced
since the Cold War. However, the authorities suddenly seem to have
realized that there could be potential for armed conflict in the future.
There are now plans to reintroduce compulsory
military service.
In early 2017, the
Swedish police
were instructed to increase their preparations for war. They were not
told who this potential war would be against, although the authorities
like to talk about an alleged threat of an invasion
from Russia.
It is not, however, the Russians who now routinely burn cars and
commit gang-rapes in Swedish cities. These crimes are largely committed
by recent immigrants, many of them Muslims coming from war zones. These
immigrants have for decades been allowed in by the ruling political
elites, applauded by the mass media and supported by the EU and the UN.
The Islamic terror threat in Western Europe is now endemic. In late 2016, the police at Brussels International Airport detained
30 terror
suspects in one month. That is one potential terrorist per day, at one
European airport. Belgium's highest-ranking police chief warned in
February 2017 that the terror threat remains "
grave"
after the Brussels bombings on March 22, 2016. Because of the many
radical Muslims living in Belgium, the authorities are concerned that
Belgian citizens may lose their
visa-free access to the United States.
Due to the threat of terrorism, robberies and street crime, many Chinese, Japanese and Korean travelers have
dropped their holiday plans
in France. Chronic instability and violence have damaged the country's
reputation as a travel destination. Even a prolonged state of emergency
and large numbers of police and soldiers deployed in the streets are not
enough to uphold law and order.
In February 2017, Paris and other French cities were once more rocked
by days of rioting by Muslim and African immigrant. The trigger was an
allegation of police violence. However, discontent seems to be
endemic. Riots among immigrants could erupt again at any moment.
After a firebomb attack on four police officers near Paris in 2016,
France's prime minister insisted there were no no-go zones in the
country. However, this is not what the police themselves say.
"Of course there are no-go zones in France where the police cannot intervene and do their jobs in safety,"
says Denis Jacob from the union Alternative Police-CFDT.
"And it's the same for fire fighters or pretty much any
representative of the state. The police can't apply the law in these
areas, they are attacked. If the police can't do their work it's because
there are criminals and delinquents who don't respect the law."
Yet it would be very bad for business and tourism if the authorities
openly acknowledged this. "Governments will never admit there are no-go
zones because it's a sign of a failed state," Jacob adds.
As
Soeren Kern writes at Gatestone Institute:
"The problem of no-go zones is well documented, but
multiculturalists and their politically correct supporters vehemently
deny that they exist. Some are now engaged in a concerted campaign to
discredit and even silence those who draw attention to the issue."
What does it take for the
New York Times and other established media to define an area as a no-go zone?
It is an indisputable fact that a number of areas exist in several
Western European countries where criminal ethnic gangs dominate the
streets and where even the police find it very difficult to walk in
safety. The number and size of these areas, fueled by mass immigration,
seems to be growing.
If the
New York Times and other mass media deny this fact,
then they are engaged in producing "fake news." People who truthfully
warn about these problems thus risk being unfairly vilified and smeared
for doing so.
Most dangerous, however, is our inability to deal forcefully with
problems that are undermining Western societies, because some Western
media refuse to admit that the problems exist.
Mass immigration from incompatible cultures, particularly from the
Islamic world, is gradually undermining law and order in many Western
cities. If Western media refuse frankly to acknowledge this fact, they
are putting the long-term survival of our societies seriously at risk.
Fjordman, a Norwegian historian, is an expert on Europe, Islam and multiculturalism.
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