The Swedish police face over 40 reports of rape and sexual assault at two music festivals over the weekend in Karlstad and Norrköping.
The police have identified seven suspects described as “foreign young men.”
The victims are mostly under 18-years-old with three under 15. The youngest victim is only 12-years-old.
In Karlstad, Inspector Leif Nyström confirmed they have 32 reports of assaults at the festival Putte i Parken:
“These were reports of women being touched in unwanted places, such as on their breasts and on their bottoms and inside their underwear,” he said.The police have been examining seven suspects, six of them foreigners, whose ages range from under 18 to 35, Inspector Nystrom said; no arrests have been made.
Authorities also want to find “a man who speaks ‘flawless Swedish’ in connection with one of the five rapes at the first festival.” Alexandra Larsson, 17, did not see who “exactly assaulted her at Putte i Parken,” but she definitely knows the young men who surrounded her were “not from a Swedish background:”
“They were probably immigrants. I hate to say it. But it is the truth,” she said.
A 15-year-old who remains anonymous said “foreign” youths molested five of her six friends:
A man had come up behind her and started grinding against her, she said. A young man had groped one of her friends through her jeans.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time sexual assaults have occurred at Swedish festivals:
The Swedish police have already been under scrutiny. The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter accused the police of failing to publicize details about sexual assaults at a festival in Stockholm last summer until the newspaper drew attention to the episode. The newspaper also accused the authorities of failing to warn the public ahead of the festival that similar attacks had taken place in 2014 and suggested that the police were trying to avoid an anti-immigrant backlash.
Police tried to take action by passing out anti-groping campaign bracelets to raise awareness, but now people have demanded they do much more. Mumfod & Sons said they will not return to the Bravålla festival until they receive guarantees over security.
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