Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters in the multicultural Swedish city of Malmö handed out flyers calling for the abolition of police, according to local reports.
The flyers were handed out on Tuesday evening during the latest BLM protest in the city at the Möllevångstorget square. The pamphlets demanded that “the police must be abolished” in Sweden, while also mentioning support for migrants set for deportation.
“No matter where on the scale, a capitalist and racial/white supremacy policy is being driven and the structures are the same,” the flyer stated, according to a report by news website Nyheter Idag.
“Although the history of the Swedish police does not have the same relation to slavery as the United States, it is the same structures that have emerged: institutionalised racism, where it is clear who is most persecuted, stopped and controlled, abused, locked up and even murdered,” the flyer stated.
“To put an end to this, we can’t just cut off some ‘rotten branches’; we have to dig up the entire tree with the roots, we have to get rid of the police completely,” the group added.
Swedish newspaper Expressen stated the protest lasted just 30 minutes and was attended by around 500 people, in violation of Wuhan coronavirus measures that state gatherings of more than 50 people are prohibited.
Over the last week, Sweden has seen several protests in solidarity with BLM activists in the United States following the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd. Many demonstrations have also demanded defunding or abolishing the police.
One protest in Gothenburg that took place over the weekend saw the demonstration turn to riots as police lost control of the crowd. Rioters smashed shops and went on to loot not only businesses but the moving van of a local Swedish family as well.
Sweden, which already has one of the smallest police forces per capita in Europe according to Gothenburg police chief Erik Nord, has previously had major problems with officers quitting the profession.
A 2016 report claimed that as many as 80 per cent of Sweden’s police were considering a career change. Police have struggled to find recruits, as the government has called for more officers from diverse backgrounds.