Immigrants Spark Riots, Attack Police In Sweden Two Days After Trump’s Comment On Security

Riots broke out in a predominantly immigrant neighborhood in the northern suburbs of Stockholm just two days after President Donald Trump sparked outcry and confusion by seeming to incorrectly imply that immigrants had perpetrated a recent spate of violence in Sweden.

According to the Washington Post, a crowd in Rinkeby neighborhood burned about half a dozen cars, vandalized several shopfronts and threw rocks at police.

Some reports suggested that the Monday clashes started when police arrested a suspect and people started throwing stones at them. Rinkeby was also the scene of riots in 2010 and 2013.

Trump during a Saturday rally in Florida had said "look what's happening last night in Sweden" as a reference to a supposed frightening security episode in the country. The President clarified his remarks a day after on Twitter saying that he drew his claim about immigrant violence in Sweden from a Fox News segment in which two Swedish police officers were interviewed.

Media in Sweden has been accused of self-censoring and restricting reporting on attacks conducted by immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries.

The political landscape in Sweden is dominated by center-left political parties. The country has taken in the greatest number of immigrants from Africa and Middle-East per capita. Successive left-wing governments have downplayed the effects of immigration on the structure of the Swedish society, the wages and employment of native-born workers and rise in the level of crime.

With inputs from ANI