Media activism Media malfeasance Sweden

The Local’s epic fail debunking of Trump-Tucker Carlson-Ami Horowitz on criticism of Sweden…….


 

The Local is an English language based digital newspaper (with multiple independent nation affiliates) which serves as an unnofficial mouthpiece for EU policies and agendas.

It’s a highly dishonest news outlet, in that it’s obvious what they promote but nonetheless try to pass themselves off as independent news media. They are in every respect, promoters of the EU elite’s agendas. So in regards to the Trump-Sweden kerfuffle, they do a ludicrus ‘fact-check’ on claims made during a Tucker Carlson program on Fox, with American film maker Avi Horowitz who had recently visited the Malmö area.

This blog post debunks their fact checking.

Six claims and facts about Sweden: a closer look at Ami Horowitz’ report

When US president Donald Trump this past weekend mentioned events in Sweden, he was referring to a TV broadcast about Swedish migration policy. Several claims in the broadcast are questionable, and some downright wrong. Swedish news agency TT has looked at the facts.

1. Claim: In the introduction to the Fox News segment, the presenter says: ”In 2016 alone the country accepted more than 160,000 asylum seekers”.
Fact: In 2016, nearly 29,000 people sought asylum in Sweden, a very sharp decline compared to 2015, when nearly 163,000 sought asylum, according to the Migration Board. In 2016 there were nearly 112,000 asylum decisions taken, some 67,000 were approved.

[TT debunks their ‘facts’: Yes, the evil Fox presenter got the year wrong, BY ONE YEAR, which does not take anything away from the original claim itself, that in one year 160 000 migrants seeking asylum crossed their borders. This was at the height of the crisis.]

2. Claim: “They feel it is their moral duty to open their borders to all and any refugees that want to come to them”, says filmmaker Ami Horowitz in the interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Fact: In November 2015 Sweden sharpened border controls to temporarily include arrivals from within the EU, followed by temporary identity checks in January 2016. Together with actions in other European countries, led to a dramatic decline in the number of asylum seekers (see point 1).
In 2016, asylum policies were tightened in a number of ways, which meant that Sweden went from having the EU’s most generous asylum laws to the EU minimum level, according to the Migration Board.

[TT debunks their ‘facts’: The use of the word ‘they’ is about those Swedes in general who view their government as an extension of themselves. To criticize their government is taken as a criticism of all ‘correct thinking’ Swedes. They’ve been indoctrinated by decades of insular reporting that promotes accepted views on any given societal issue, any divergence from the accepted narrative brings the offender a quick retribution.

Here’s a fact, Sweden was forced to tighten its border controls due to pressure from the police who said the situation was untenable. But it’s the emotional thinking of the politicians and those citizens I just mentioned who thought those measures demanded by the police was too harsh. It’s that mind-think which was being discussed by Ami Horowitz on Fox with Tucker Carlson. Here’s proof:


From the Guardian no less: “The Greens’ deputy prime minister, Åsa Romson, breaks into tears as she announces measures to deter asylum seekers in a reversal of Sweden’s open-door policy towards people fleeing war and persecution. ‘This is a terrible decision,’ she said later, admitting that the proposals would make life even more precarious for refugees. But quitting the government would have made a bad situation even worse, she added.“]

3. Claim: “There was an absolute surge in gun violence and rape in Sweden once they began this open door policy” says Horowitz.
Fact: The number of killings in “the criminal world” has increased from an average of 4 per year 1990–1994, to 14 per year from 2010 to 2014, in the entire country of 10 million people. In 2015 the number is preliminarily estimated at 28, according to criminologist Michael Rying at the Police Authority.
Several such shootings took place also in 2016, but the overall rate of deadly violence in Sweden is still about 1 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 5 per 100,000 in the US, according to the FBI.
The number of reports of rape has increased. However, because of several changes in sexual crimes legislation, and a belief that the propensity to report sexual crimes is increasing, it is difficult to compare the numbers over time.
Self reported female victims of sexual crimes number between 1 and 1.5 percent during the period 2005–2012. In the latest survey, in 2015, the figure had risen to 3 percent, according to the National Crime Prevention Agency. The responses say nothing about the type of sexual offenses.

[TT debunks their ‘facts’: Trump’s talk in Melbourne mentioned nothing specific about gun violence, but yes, Horowitz mentioned it, I don’t have any readily available facts on that single issue, but rapes have in fact surged. Over at PowerLineBlog, John Hinderaker took note on how the Swedish online news mag, The Local, buried these important facts in their spin on the rape explosion: “With regard to the just-released 2016 numbers, you have to wade through some spin to get to the facts:

[T]he number of rapes reported in Sweden increased by 13 percent in 2016 to 6,560.
***
According to Brå’s figures, 10,500 incidents of sexual molestation were reported in the country in 2016 – a striking increase of 20 percent on 2015 (when 8,840 were reported).

The facts are there, but you have to wade through piles of spin and subterfuge in order to flesh them out.]

4. Claim (about immigrant suburbs): “These are areas that cops won’t even enter, because it’s too dangerous for them. This is the policy of the national police authority in Sweden” says Horowitz.
Fact: Untrue. On the contrary, the police have strengthened their presence in several areas.
“There are no areas that the police do not go in to. In a report from 2015 the police describe 15 particularly vulnerable areas. These areas are characterized by, among other things, the difficulty for the police to fulfill its duty. There are no guidelines that the police should not visit these areas” writes Johanna Blomqvist, spokesperson for the national policeforce, to TT.

[TT debunks their ‘facts’. If police say that they have lost control over areas to crime, that they’re powerless to stop it, that tells you a lot about the area. The rule of law is not inforce, there is no respect for that uniform. Can they go in, possibly, but not without a heavy presence and what can they do once they’re in, but to get out fast. Here’s a Nov, 2016 report from the Express: “But police have now admitted the force has reached breaching point as more than 50 areas in the country have now been placed on a “no-go zone” list. In February a report from Sweden’s National Criminal Investigation Service announced there were 52 areas where officers would . ”

You read that right, 50 areas where levels of crime can’t be coped with. They’re at a breaking point.

5. Claim: “The government has gone out of its way to try to cover up some of these problems”, says Horowitz.
Fact: “The Foreign Ministry and the embassies are working continuously to spread an accurate and fair picture of Sweden. Unfortunately, we see a general tendency that the incidence of false information is increasing,” foreign Minister Margot Wallström writes in an email to TT on Monday.

[TT debunks their ‘facts’: Not only have they been covering things up, they’ve been doubling down on stupid. Their “working continuously to spread an accurate and fair picture of Sweden” consitutes the cover up that Horowitz alludes to. This is humorous.

6. Claim: “Sweden had its first terrorist Islamic attack not that long ago, so they’re now getting a taste of what we have been seeing in Europe already” says Horowitz.
Fact: This probably refers to suicide bomber Taimour Abdulwahab, who blew himself up at the corner Bryggargatan and Drottninggatan in central Stockholm over six years ago (December 11th, 2010). No one else was injured. In an audio file that Abdulwahab emailed to TT, the security police (Säpo) and his family the same day, he wrote that “The Islamic state” exists in Sweden and Europe, and that its “actions will speak for themselves.”

[TT debunks their ‘facts’: Ami could have been talking about the recent IKEA knife attack in Aug, 2015, which he didn’t call an act of jihad, but included it in the overall migrant violence explosion being seen all over Europe. The Local assumes, like it assumes that the rest of us can’t think for ourselves.They’re wrong on that one as well.]

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