Accusations of “kidnapping” refugee children, especially Muslims, are spreading on the Internet. This is enough to alarm the press and the Swedish authorities, who see this as a disinformation campaign led by extremists.
Under the hashtag #arretez_de_kidnapper_nos_enfants (in Arabic, English, Swedish or French), a series of messages launched on social networks denounce what is presented there as the abduction of children, torn from their families by Swedish social services.
Children of parents who arrived in Sweden as refugees during the last decade who would then be forced to assimilate in this country “fascist”, away from relatives they would be forbidden to see once more. Since the end of December, the rumor swells, relayed on the Internet, in particular by the pan-Arab media Al-Jazeera or the Turkish channel TRT. “Extremists attack social services”, reacts the Swedish conservative daily Swedish daily newspaper.
On social networks, people, anonymous or not, claim that families are attacked in Sweden, when a child or even several children are taken away from them, sometimes by force. Videos are posted, which show the separation in the cries of a child and his family, parents in tears, a Syrian child who says he can no longer see his parents. On Monday February 7, a few hundred people demonstrated once morest these acts in front of the Parliament, in Stockholm, shouting “We want our children,” reports the liberal daily Expressen (see this video). Another demonstration is planned for Sunday February 13 in Gothenburg, the country’s second city.
“Respect Swedish law”
At the heart of the controversy, a law that allows Swedish social services to remove a child from one family and place him in another, “if the family circumstances present such shortcomings that there is a serious risk of harm to the health and development of the child”, Explain Today’s News.
Such a decision, recalls the liberal daily, is taken by a court, following an investigation by social services, and can be appealed. “Our law guarantees certain basic rights to children growing up here. This law is above the wishes of families or religions,” valued Swedish daily newspaper in an editorial, while ensuring:
Sweden is not once morest Islam, nor once morest Muslims
[…]
Anthony Jacob
