quarta-feira, 21 de outubro de 2015

Small-Town Sweden Chafes at Migrant Influx


Small-Town Sweden Chafes at Migrant Influx

Government’s welcoming refugee policy runs into anti-foreigner sentiment in rural areas

By ANNA MOLIN
Updated Oct. 20, 2015 9:36 p.m. ET


VOLLSJO, Sweden—When Johnny Palm heard that developers wanted to turn a former hotel into a shelter for asylum-seekers, many likely Muslims from the Middle East, he immediately added his name to a protest list.

“The village can’t handle it,” the 42-year-old plumber said, crossing his tattooed arms. “Why don’t they go to Saudi Arabia instead where they share the same religion and speak the same language?”

Sweden has granted asylum to nearly 50,000 people since the start of the year, taking in more refugees per capita than any other European country. Even as the European Union argues over how to handle the biggest influx since World War II, Social Democrat Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has vowed to keep Sweden’s doors open. “My Europe doesn’t build walls,” he said at a recent rally in Stockholm.

But Mr. Lofven’s welcoming stance is increasingly being challenged as the river of people from Syria, Iraq and beyond reshapes the political landscape in Sweden and across the Nordic region.

The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats—long a fringe movement with neo-Nazi roots—has become the country’s third-largest political force. Recent surveys show about 20% of Swedes now support the party, up from 13% in last year’s general election and less than 6% in 2010.

In Norway and Finland, populist parties have joined ruling coalitions. In Denmark, Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen governs with support from the anti-immigration People’s Party, which agreed to back him only after he promised to tighten borders.

In Sweden, anti-immigrant sentiment is heard loudly in small towns and rural areas, where many of the homes for new arrivals awaiting a decision on their asylum application are set up. This summer, several shelters were targeted in arson attacks, including with Molotov cocktails. No arrests have been made.

Last month, police found flammable liquid outside a home 80 miles west of Stockholm. Police say someone may have intended to try to avenge two people who were killed at a nearby IKEA store in August, allegedly by one of the shelter’s residents.

Mr. Lofven is facing local resistance to his plan for all municipalities to share the load. Some mayors from his own party have started to question the open-arms policy.

“Before Sweden takes in more, other countries have to do their part,” said Goran Dahlstrom, a Social Democrat and the mayor of Katrineholm in central Sweden.

In Vollsjo, a village of 900 people that gave its name to the soft-leather Vollsjo clogs, plans to convert the Hotel Svea (short for Sweden) into a shelter sparked a petition drive against it, punctuated by xenophobic diatribes online.

Such opposition isn’t new: In 1988, after thousands of refugees fled the Iran-Iraq war to Sweden, two-thirds of voters in Sjobo, the broader municipality that includes Vollsjo, voted against accepting any.

Still, in 2001 the municipality, with 18,000 residents, sidestepped the non-binding vote and agreed to accept 25 refugees a year. In addition, Sjobo has opened two shelters since 2014 to house around 30 so-called unaccompanied minors—young asylum-seekers without parents or guardians.

“I think that’s enough,” Mr. Palm said.

Feeding the public frustration, some mainstream politicians have tiptoed around the issue, saying it is out of their purview.

Vollsjo Mayor Thomas Quist argued the shelter proposal wasn’t his to deal with. “This came in as a building matter, it’s completely apolitical,” he said.

Last year, as the number of arrivals began to surge again, the Sweden Democrats emerged as the second-biggest party in Sjobo with nearly 21% of the votes in a municipal election, more than doubling their 2010 result.

Real-estate developer Hans Palm, who also works as a lawyer in Gothenburg, was undaunted. His latest plan for Hotel Svea calls for housing 25 minors as well as providing meals, computers, table tennis and even an indoor pool. Many are likely to come from Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Somalia.

Such projects are mushrooming across Sweden because the migration agency is desperate for rooms to lodge asylum seekers due to a housing shortage in Stockholm and other large cities.

Mr. Palm the plumber, who isn’t related to the developer, set out to stop it in Vollsjo.

In May, he created a Facebook page featuring a police officer holding his hand up in a “stop” gesture in front of the Swedish flag. The page has more than 600 likes and posts like “Don’t destroy a genuine village” and “Don’t ruin the beautiful hotel.”

Lars Vilhelm Larsson, local head of the Sweden Democrats, filed a motion with Sjobo municipality asking it to buy the hotel and all vacant property in the village to prevent such shelters. That was eventually turned down as financially irresponsible.

Meanwhile, the hotel project went to the urban planning committee in July. It passed after the committee chairman, Carl-Anders Lillas, used his double vote to break a tie. Mr. Lillas said he had made a technical decision, not a political one, based on the building’s suitability.

A handful of residents appealed to the County Administrative Board of Skane, among them Tommy and Britt Akesson, who run a local grocery.

In their complaint, they argued that a committee focused on things like building safety doesn’t have the authority to determine if the village should get an asylum home. They also said the community was worried migrants would cause an increase in social problems and a drop in property prices.

“There’s a need for a much broader engagement from those in charge in such an important issue,” they said.

The developer called the criticism unfounded. “This won’t increase social tensions unless those who already live there start them,” he said. “I’m convinced these children and teenagers will behave. These aren’t people who’ve come here to start trouble, they’re fleeing wars.”

A county official said a decision on the appeals was likely in six to nine months.


Write to Anna Molin at anna.molin@wsj.com

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