Swedish police have made three arrests following reports that scores of black-clad men targeted foreigners, as they rampaged through central Stockholm on Friday.
Local media reported on Saturday that up to 100 men had attacked people and handed out leaflets threatening violence against foreigners, highlighting growing tensions in a country of 10 million people that received 163,000 asylum seekers last year, Al Jazeera reported.
Friday night’s incident was followed by an anti-refugee protest on Saturday, which resulted in some scuffles with counter-demonstrators, according to local media.
“Racist groups are spreading hate and violence in our streets. This has to be met with force,” Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said in a statement on Saturday.
Swedish newspapers said that according to witnesses, a number of people had been attacked by the gang on Friday, who they reported to be hooligans associated with local football teams.
One witness told the Aftonbladet newspaper that he had seen a group of men beating people in the middle of the capital’s busy central Sergels Torg Square.
Police said three arrests were made on Saturday, Reuters reported.
The police also said one man had been arrested on Friday night for punching a plainclothes officer and another for carrying a knuckleduster, but the extent of assaults on immigrants was not clear.
Friday’s incident came a day after a 22-year-old female worker was stabbed to death in a center for unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors in the southwest of the country.
The leaflets handed out on Friday, which police said were also posted to Swedish social media, said: “When Swedish streets are no longer safe for ordinary Swedes it is our DUTY to fix the problem ... The police have amply shown that it lacks the means to rein them in and we now see no alternative than for us to mete out the punishment they deserve.”
