Stockholm restaurant burnt down as Sweden unrest spreads

Firemen extinguish a burning car in Kista after youths protested in few different suburbs around Stockholm on May 21, 2013.

Angry youths have torched a restaurant and more than 30 cars in the suburbs of the Swedish capital in protest against the police shooting of a 69-year-old man.

At least 30 cars were set on fire in western and southern Stockholm on Thursday, police spokesman Kjell Lindgren said.

A restaurant in Skogas, south of the capital, was also burnt down in a fourth night of the unrest, Lindgren said, adding that three police officers were injured as the angry youths pelted them with stones.

The unrest began in Husby suburb on Sunday, days after police shot dead an elderly man who had locked himself in an apartment in the poor neighborhood west of Stockholm.

On Wednesday, hundreds of demonstrators broke windows and torched cars in Stockholm suburbs that are mainly populated by immigrants and asylum seekers.

Police said two cars were also torched in the southern city of Malmo earlier in the day.

On Tuesday, a police station in the northwest of Stockholm was attacked, two schools were damaged and a local arts center was set alight during the unrest.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt called for calm, saying, “We have groups of young men who think that they can and should change society with violence.”

The riots in one of Europe’s richest capitals have shocked a country that prides itself on a reputation for social justice, and fuelled a debate about how Sweden is coping with both youth unemployment and an influx of immigrants.
SAB/KA