Sweden considers controversial 'anti-ghetto plan'

By Paul Rhys

MALMO, Sweden (AA) - As Sweden heads to the elections, politicians are suggesting that rising crime rates – including the shooting dead of a gang leader in a Malmö shopping center last week – can be blamed on the failure to integrate immigrants.

No country in Europe has taken in more refugees per capita than Sweden, in the past decade. But this open door policy has not been followed up with a strategy of integrating new arrivals into society.

The government believes that immigrant majority ghettos are on the increase. And is now suggesting that people are divided up into categories of "Nordic" and "non-Nordic" – in order to mix them back together again.

But is this integration, or discrimination?

Immigration minister Anders Ygeman has suggested the problem can be solved by limiting the number of "non-Nordic" people on troubled housing estates to a maximum of 50 per cent of the population.

The policy was backed by Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson last week.

But residents on Malmö's Rosengård estate are divided on the issue, with some remembering a far-off time when they lived alongside Swedes – and others calling the policy discriminatory.