Sweden riots continue after police shooting
Windows smashed, cars and several containers set on fire, and seven police officers injured in a Stockholm suburb.
Last Modified: 22 May 2013 02:06
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Around 200 people hurled rocks at police and set cars ablaze in a Stockholm suburb during the second day of rioting, which was triggered by the fatal police shooting of a man wielding a knife.
Dozens of windows were smashed, 10 cars and several containers were set on fire, and seven police officers were injured on Tuesday.
Six people were arrested early in the day, but two were released after questioning, police spokesman Jorgen Karlsson said.
Cars and containers were also set ablaze in Fittja, another Stockholm suburb, although police said it was not clear whether the two events were linked.
The unrest began Sunday night in response to the May 13 shooting, in which police killed a 69-year-old man who had locked himself in an apartment in Husby, west of Stockholm. Around 80 percent of the roughly 11,000 residents of the suburbs are first- or second-generation immigrants.
Police have refused to give the nationality of the victim.
Many local residents see the shooting as an example of police brutality, and the violence has stirred debate in Sweden.
Tense atmosphere
The country, known for its strong welfare state and egalitarian society, has had the biggest surge in inequality of any Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country over the past 25 years, according to a recent publication by the global economic watchdog.
"This is not OK. We will not give in to violence," Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said. "We must all help out to regain calm. The residents of Husby need to get their neighbourhood back."
Reinfeldt added that Husby has been going in the right direction during his seven-year tenure, with employment increasing and crime falling.
Al Jazeera's Rory Challands, reporting from Husby, said that local authorities are doing their best to assimilate new immigrant arrivals.
"Husby is not some slum that the state has abandoned," he said.
The atmosphere was tense on Tuesday, with residents expressing both anger at police and sadness about the destruction. City workers were seen clearing the debris of a burnt-out container and documenting fire damage.
Reza Al Bazi, 14, and his friend Sebastian Horniak, 15, said they witnessed the violence throughout the night.
Horniak claimed he witnessed police firing warning shots in the air and calling a woman a "monkey."
"I got upset yesterday because I saw police attack innocent people, they beat a woman with a baton," he said.
Horniak's claims of racist remarks were backed up by the organisation Megafonen, which represents citizens in Stockholm's suburbs.
Prosecutors have launched an internal probe into the shooting. Police say they shot the man in self-defence because he attacked them with a knife when they broke down the door to an apartment where he had locked himself up with a woman.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
