--- description: Reports released Monday accuse them of covering up sexual assault by migrant men at a music festival. An internal probe has been launched title: Swedish Police Covered Up Sex Attacks by Migrants: Report image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [sweden](/tag/sweden/) ## sweden Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Police in Sweden Are Accused of Covering Up Sexual Attacks by Asylum Seekers by [Rishi Iyengar](/author/rishi-iyengar/) ## Rishi Iyengar Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jan 12, 2016 8:39 AM CUT by [Rishi Iyengar](/author/rishi-iyengar/) ## Rishi Iyengar Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jan 12, 2016 8:39 AM CUT Police in Sweden’s capital city Stockholm have launched an internal investigation following reports released Monday accusing them of [covering up](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/11/swedish-police-accused-cover-up-sex-attacks-refugees-festival "undefined") sexual assault by migrant men at a popular music festival. Many “so-called refugee youths, specifically from Afghanistan,” were arrested for molesting young women at the We Are Stockholm festival in 2014, the _Guardian_ reports, citing police memos leaked to Swedish newspaper _Dagens Nyheter._ However, an official police report provided to the press did not mention any sexual assaults, let alone the apparent ethnicity of the suspects — omissions Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven slammed as a “double betrayal” of women who were attacked. There has been speculation that the assaults were deliberately hushed up in order to discourage anti-immigrant sentiment in Sweden. According to the [BBC](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35285086 "undefined"), Peter Agren who headed the police operation at the festival in 2015, told _Dagens Nyheter_: “Sometimes we do not really say how things are because we believe it may play into the hands of the \[right-wing, anti-immigration party\] Sweden Democrats.” In a separate incident, police in the Swedish city of Malmo said gangs of “unaccompanied” Afghan men surrounded women during New Year’s Eve celebrations and sexually assaulted them, similar to the [hundreds of cases](http://time.com/4174614/cologne-crimes-500-merkel-refugees-sexual-assault/ "undefined") reported in the German city of Cologne during the same period. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4176681/sweden-police-sexual-assault-refugees-migrants-afghans/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4176681/sweden-police-sexual-assault-refugees-migrants-afghans/"},"headline":"Police in Sweden Are Accused of Covering Up Sexual Attacks by Asylum Seekers","datePublished":"2016-01-12T08:39:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:59:26.182Z","description":"The accusations stem from a leaked police memo obtained by a local newspaper","url":"https://time.com/4176681/sweden-police-sexual-assault-refugees-migrants-afghans/","keywords":["sweden","Sexual Assault","police","Report"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Rishi Iyengar","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/rishi-iyengar/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/sweden/","name":"sweden"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4176681/sweden-police-sexual-assault-refugees-migrants-afghans/","name":"Police in Sweden Are Accused of Covering Up Sexual Attacks by Asylum Seekers"}}]}] ```