At Vasaskolan in Skövde, a brutal assault occurred in May, when a student received blows and kicks to the head by seven attackers. In the local media, important facts were concealed: The abuse is part of an increasingly tense ethnic conflict between Swedish young people and immigrants from Skövde’s ghetto Södra Ryd.
On May 10, several newspapers in Skaraborg reported that a student had been brutally beaten by seven to eight other “students” at Vasaskolan in Skara. Swedish weekly Nya Tider can now reveal that this is an ongoing racial conflict between ethnic Swedish students and immigrant students from Skövde’s ghetto Södra Ryd.
The perpetrators were described in the media as “six, seven young people, some of them from Vasaskolan, others from other schools”. According to the mainstream newspapers, they disguised themselves during the assault, which took place inside Vasaskolan.
Nya Tider revealed however that the system media omitted important facts in its reporting: all perpetrators are immigrants from Skövde’s immigrant-dense area Södra Ryd, the victim is a Swede, and the abuse has racist motives. There is an increasingly tense ethnic conflict at Vasaskolan between Swedish young people and immigrants.
‘Seven, eight kicks in the head’
Nya Tider has been in contact with a source close to the incident. He believes that it was only random circumstances that saved the Swede from being harmed for life, or even death.
“It was great luck that there were some adult leisure leaders nearby who saw what was going on. They had to go around on the other side of the house, around the school to get into the room. So the gang went on for a while, but it was fortunate anyway that they interrupted it pretty quickly.”
The Swede had received seven or eight kicks to the head. “It could have ended badly,” the source admitted. “He had a concussion, but the symptoms have largely disappeared now after a couple of days and he is taking it easy. He also suffered a jaw injury, but it will heal.”
The middle-aged source describes Skövde as a municipality with increasing crime problems. With this development, the threshold for what is considered everyday crime has also been raised. A brutal gang assault becomes an article for a day, after which it is forgotten. Stone throwing and car arson are only sometimes reported, if at all.
“We have become ‘culturally enriched’ in Skövde. We also have an immigrant area here, Södra Ryd, which was built in 1973. There have been problems there for a long time… this is not the first time that something like that has happened. Ten years ago, there was a gang that burned down three or four daycare centers here in the city. From a police point of view, it was more or less cleared up, but the perpetrators got away with it and received no punishment. There has been stone-throwing at the bus traffic, some cars have been burned at regular intervals and the like. But there will be no major newspaper articles. If several cars are set on fire, it will not be in the news.”
Affects children and young people
The source believes that Swedish young people live under constant fear of being exposed to threats or violence. “Yes, it’s so. We’ve got that society now. When I was a teenager, we were out and about on evenings and weekends and nights. We did everything possible, had fun with friends, small groups went around… You were not afraid of anything then. But today it is actually life threatening to go out in the evenings and nights, if you do not move in larger groups that can have a little control over each other. It is deplorable that this has happened.”
He says that much of the other development in Skövde has been positive. The city has expanded when the municipality got a university branch, it still has two regiments, and the municipality has an advantageous geographical location – by train Gothenburg is one hour away and Stockholm two. But immigration is the big minus and means that Skövde is now starting to experience the same problems as other places.
“We are 52 000, and have been relatively spared. Compared with other municipalities, we have a relatively small number of cultural enrichers. It is worse in Filipstad, where they have a huge amount. They probably have at least as many as we have, with a much smaller population.”
Inhabitants expect ethnic tension to get worse. “This area of exclusion has been around for quite some time, and it is gradually getting worse over time. In the beginning, it was mostly single individuals who were difficult, today it is fixed gang formations that cause problems. And it is no wonder, their number has increased. Then it will eventually be bigger gangs.
“This development – with robbery, abuse and rape – affects the children and young people above all, not us adults.”
Ethnic conflict at Vasaskolan
He described the current abuse at Vasaskolan as the culmination of an ethnic conflict that has been going on for a long time, but exactly what the triggering factor for the assault was, is unclear.
Until now, the conflict between Swedes and immigrants has been verbal. He describes the Swedes as people who have not been afraid to “talk about what they think” when faced with unruly immigrants.
“It has been verbal so far, and when the ‘guys from the town’ were in the majority, they have been very aggressive. Vice versa, the Swedish guys have probably talked about what they think of the boys from the town when the Swedes have been in the majority.
The assaulted Swede was not really the immigrants’ primary target, it appears. “This is mostly aimed at another guy, but they did not get hold of him. He was beaten because he was part of the Swedish gang, not because he was the number one target.”
He says that the police identified all the perpetrators, despite the fact that the perpetrators were masked during the assault. Nevertheless, they will not be able to be sentenced to any criminal sanction, as they are under 15 years of age. They will therefore become the problem of social services.
There was no camera or picture from the incident, but the whole gang had gathered down by the travel center where they had taken off their masks and boarded the same bus out to Södra Ryd, the local version of Rinkeby. The police have now, together with school staff and Swedish youths, been able to identify everyone from the bus’ surveillance camera. Four or five of them are from Vasaskolan, the rest are from other schools.
Journalist: Ethnicity not relevant
Nya Tider contacted Lena Jonsson, who wrote the article for regional daily Skaraborgs Allehanda (SLA). She says she did not knowingly omit the perpetrators’ ethnicity and admits that it was new information for her.
“I must admit that I have not found out at all what it is about. I know we were looking for that information, but I have not found out what it was. I realized that it was also students from another school who had been suspended, and I think it was connected to this incident.”
She said she was not aware of an increasingly intense ethnic conflict with gangs involved – Swedes on the one hand and immigrants on the other. The immigrants came from the ghetto in Skövde, Södra Ryd. When asked if the ethnic origins of the perpetrators were important, the journalist responded: “Hm. That was a bit of a difficult question. Firstly, I did not know about it, but it is clear that we could mention if there were… that is, people who live in a certain residential area, versus people who live in another residential area. We have probably written about this before, per se. But I might not express myself as accurately as you express yourself about Södra Ryd. I would not do that. Not really.”
The source that Nya Tider talked to says that he is not surprised that the local Skaraborg media are uninterested in reporting which group is behind the problems in Skövde in general, and the current abuse at Vasaskolan. “Of course, all readers still know what it’s about, they are not stupid. It is well known that the media conceals politically incorrect facts about the origin of criminals.”