Report: Major shortcomings in police work against night hatred

The community debater and former handball player Linnéa Claesson and footballer Jimmy Durmaz belong to the exceptions: They have been subjected to night hatred where the perpetrators have since been sentenced to court.

But most cases of criminal night hatred are not even reported, since crime is not a priority. This is what Tomas Åberg believes in the non-profit organization Näthatsgranneraren (NHG).

- There may be an attitude that hate crimes on the Internet and in social media are not "real crimes", both with the police and those who commit the crimes.

Since 2017, NHG, a politically and religiously unrelated non-profit association, has made 1,229 police reports against criminal network hate. 309 have led to convictions against 215 people. Thus, NHG believes that it has shown how, with limited work effort, it is possible to detect hate crimes online and also secure evidence and identify the guilty.

According to NHG's shadow report, which is a response to the police's own report on the efforts against democracy and hate crime, the authority has knowledge gaps and coordination problems regarding online crime. The lack of scouting is also addressed as a major problem.

In addition, NHG points to major differences in how this type of crime is prioritized in different police regions and between individual executives. Even among prosecutors and courts, there are wide variations in the severity of this form of crime.

- The signals from politicians and society in general are quite clear, but the legal system is not up to date, says Tomas Åberg, who himself worked as a police officer.

And he warns of serious consequences when cross-border hate messages can be disseminated without legal consequences:

- They have a normalizing effect on language use, which then seeps into society, he says.

Johan Hasselmark, Group Manager at the National Police Operations Department, welcomes the report but does not fully agree with all the criticism.

- We are constantly working on improvement, but I do not recognize the criticism of lack of commitment, but we have a huge commitment.

At the same time, he admits that there is some truth in the lack of coordination within the Swedish police.

- We have many cases that are flowing in and are constantly working to develop it in order to improve coordination. It really is something we need to look at even more daily to find development potential simply.