Rioting spread across Stockholm's suburbs on Wednesday in the third day of unrest to hit the Swedish capital, as Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt blamed the violence on "hooliganism" and appealed for calm.
A burning car in Kista Photo: AFP
By Richard Orange, Malmo
2:48PM BST 22 May 2013
Stockholm police began rounding up suspected ringleaders behind the riots, leaving cars and buildings ablaze. The unrest is believed to have been sparked the deadly police shooting last week of an elderly man.
On Tuesday night, gangs of young men set fire to more than 30 cars across the Swedish capital, pelted police and firefighters with stones, and burnt a historic 17th century house to the ground.
"Last night we caught four of them, and hopefully we are going to make some more arrests today, because we recognise who they are," said Kjell Lindgren, a spokesman for the Stockholm police.
The unrest began on Sunday night with protests in Husby against the death of a 69-year old man, who was shot by police in his apartment after approaching them brandishing a knife. Since then it has spread to other outlying districts to the north, west and south of Stockholm.
Mr Lindgren estimated that up to 300 young men were involved on Tuesday night.
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"It's a disease that spread between suburbs here in Stockholm. It's copycats. We can't yet find any personal links between the riots in different suburbs."
Mr Reinfeldt put the unrest down to a small group of angry young men. "There is a core, as there often is, of young men who believe in using violence and who believe that this use of violence is above our democratic values and above Swedish law," he said.
But community activists blamed high youth unemployment and recent cuts to public services in Husby and the other affected areas.
"This is the kind of reaction when there isn't equality between people, which is the case in Sweden," said Rami al-Khamisi, a law student and founder of Megafonen, a community rights organisation.
Daniel Ghirmai, a municipal nightwatchman in Husby, claimed police had inflamed the situation with a heavy handed response on Sunday night, hitting some people with batons and calling them "monkeys", an accusation Mr Lindgren said he would be "very surprised" if was true.
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