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Swedish Police Allegedly Covered Up Sex Crimes at an Annual Youth Music Festival

Incidents of sexual violence have been reported at the Swedish festival since 2014.
Courtesy of We Are Sthlm

Police officers have been accused of covering up a case of mass sexual assault that took place in August 2015 at Stockholm's We Are Shtlm music festival. The incident had not been reported until this past weekend, when Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter revealed that more than 50 suspects were involved in seemingly organized cases of of sexual assault.

"Police should fight crime and prosecute the perpetrators," said Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Loven in a statement to the Stockholm-based TT News Agency, as reported by Reuters. "It has not been prosecuted and handled in the way we would wish."

According to police documents, approximately 20 girls filed complaints of sexual assault at the annual free, multi-genre festival, which targets youth ages 13-19.

Roger Ticoalu, head of the city government's events department, stated, "You have a large group of boys surrounding the girls. They pretend to dance. They come closer and closer. Then they start touching their breasts and genitals. In some cases in combination with theft."

He also said that a "large part" of those detained for the assaults in Stockholm were of Afghani origin. Like recent reports of sex crimes in Cologne, Germany, the supposed ethnicity of the perpetrators has become controversial for Sweden, as it is currently dealing with an influx of asylum seekers.

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