A municipal politician for the Left Party in the Swedish city of Umeå has claimed the local city council is too white due to restrictions put in place during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I walked into a room that before the pandemic used to contain a broader representation, but which was now completely white,” Left Party politician Nasteho Osman Lander said of an August 31st meeting she attended.
According to Osman Lander, the number of participating members in the council had been reduced to 35 in order to help prevent the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus. However, parties were still free to choose who participates in the gatherings, Nyheter Idag reports.
“It is in the interests of those in power to strengthen the structures that consolidate the place of white (mainly) men in the hierarchy,” Osman Lander said.
“There are no words that can describe the feeling that filled my heart, but grief may do. I will not stand by when racism is taking more and more space in our democratic spaces. I will take up the debate, safeguard the equal value of all people, and my right to life,” she added.
In recent years, Sweden has seen a sizable shift in demographics with mass migration driving population growth in the country. At least 20 per cent of Sweden’s residents, two million people, are said to have been born abroad.
Due to the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak this year, Sweden saw the lowest population growth in 15 years as many countries have put in place travel restrictions.
Nasteho Osman Lander’s comments also come after the European Union has criticised its institutions for being “too white”.
A European Commission report from this month stated that while ethnic minorities make up around ten per cent of the population in EU member states, they do not constitute ten per cent of the staff of the European institutions.
The European Commission vowed to investigate the matter and set possible ethnic quotas for future hiring.
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