{Witnesses report people were attacked by mob after group handed out leaflets threatening violence against foreigners.}<\/p>\n
Swedish police have made three arrests following reports that scores of black-clad men targeted foreigners as they rampaged through central Stockholm on Friday.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Friday night\u2019s incident was followed by an anti-refugee protest on Saturday, which resulted in some scuffles with counter-demonstrators, according to local media.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
Police said three arrests were made on Saturday, the Reuters news agency reported.<\/p>\n
The police also said one man had been arrested on Friday night for punching a plain clothes officer and another for carrying a knuckleduster, but the extent of assaults on immigrants was not clear.<\/p>\n
Friday’s incident came a day after a 22-year-old female worker was stabbed to death in a centre for unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors in the southwest of the country.<\/p>\n
‘Our duty’<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
The Swedish government said this week it was likely to deport between 60,000 and 80,000 of last year’s applications for refugee status in a move that drew criticism from rights groups. <\/p>\n
More than 35,000 unaccompanied minors sought asylum in Sweden last year, roughly half of them registered as 16 or 17-years-old. More than 23,000 of them came from Afghanistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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