TY - CHAP

T1 - Islamophobia in Sweden

T2 - Muslim Advocacy and Hate-Crime Statistics

AU - Larsson, Göran

AU - Stjernholm, Simon

N1 - Funding Information: important example of how Islamophobic incidents can trigger support and a willingness to show solidarity with minorities and more vulnerable groups in society (Borell and Gerdner 2010). After the above incidents the Islamic Council for Cooperation 1 started a project funded by the Swedish Commission for Government Support to Faith Communities (SST) that, among other things, recorded and collected data on Islamophobia in Sweden targeting Muslims and Islamic institutions. The results of this internal documentation of Islamophobia, which includes information from the six largest Muslim umbrella organisations in Sweden, were published in 2014. 2 Publisher Copyright: © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016.

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - Like elsewhere in Europe, Sweden suffers from under-reporting and methodological problems when it comes to recording, countering and defining Islamophobic and other hate-crimes that target religious groups. Statistics on the self-reported targeting of Islamophobic hate-crimes indicate much higher numbers than those reported to the police. This chapter provides an accessible overview to the existing data on Islamophobia in Sweden, contrasting official data with how Muslims in Sweden perceive their situation. The official data come from annual reports on hate-crimes and National Safety Surveys collected by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) from 2006 to 2012. To include Muslim perceptions we have primarily used the Swedish Muslims in Cooperation Network Alternative Report (SMCNAR). The latter provides information on how many Muslims perceive Islamophobia, inequalities and discrimination in contemporary Sweden. This chapter finds that it is necessary to pay close attention to the problem of how to define and measure Islamophobia in explaining the differences between the sources of data. While the official records seem to indicate that Islamophobia is a relatively minor problem, the SMCNAR paints a different picture. No matter how we analyse existing records, the fact that there is a gap between how minorities perceive the level of hate-crimes and how this problem is shown in the official records constitutes a problem. Without better correspondence between official records and the perceptions of a minority, the ability of government bodies to tackle the problem of hate-crimes in society becomes seriously limited.

AB - Like elsewhere in Europe, Sweden suffers from under-reporting and methodological problems when it comes to recording, countering and defining Islamophobic and other hate-crimes that target religious groups. Statistics on the self-reported targeting of Islamophobic hate-crimes indicate much higher numbers than those reported to the police. This chapter provides an accessible overview to the existing data on Islamophobia in Sweden, contrasting official data with how Muslims in Sweden perceive their situation. The official data come from annual reports on hate-crimes and National Safety Surveys collected by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) from 2006 to 2012. To include Muslim perceptions we have primarily used the Swedish Muslims in Cooperation Network Alternative Report (SMCNAR). The latter provides information on how many Muslims perceive Islamophobia, inequalities and discrimination in contemporary Sweden. This chapter finds that it is necessary to pay close attention to the problem of how to define and measure Islamophobia in explaining the differences between the sources of data. While the official records seem to indicate that Islamophobia is a relatively minor problem, the SMCNAR paints a different picture. No matter how we analyse existing records, the fact that there is a gap between how minorities perceive the level of hate-crimes and how this problem is shown in the official records constitutes a problem. Without better correspondence between official records and the perceptions of a minority, the ability of government bodies to tackle the problem of hate-crimes in society becomes seriously limited.

KW - Brå

KW - Hate-crimes

KW - Islamophobia

KW - Methodological analysis differences

KW - Swedish Muslims

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85004125907&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-29698-2_10

DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-29698-2_10

M3 - Book chapter

AN - SCOPUS:85004125907

T3 - Boundaries of Religious Freedom : Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies

SP - 153

EP - 166

BT - Boundaries of Religious Freedom

PB - Springer Science and Business Media B.V.

ER -