Sweden must step up efforts to fight systemic racism and focus on strategies to restore trust between police and minority groups, the UN said on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Members of a UN Human Rights Council-appointed group of independent experts on advancing racial justice and equality said they were \u201cdeeply concerned\u201d by Sweden\u2019s reluctance to collect data disaggregated by race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The International Expert Mechanism was in Sweden on a five-day visit for meetings and interviews to gather information on existing legislative and regulatory measures for tackling racial discrimination, according to a UN statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJuan Mendez, a member of the experts\u2019 group, said visits to police detention and pre-trial detention centers in Stockholm and Malmo left them \u201cconcerned over an excessive recourse to solitary confinement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMore generally, we are also concerned that Sweden may be addressing legitimate security challenges, including growing gang criminality, through a response which focuses on over policing, surveillance, and undue deprivation of liberty,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe call upon Sweden to fully comply with the Nelson Mandela Rules – formerly the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners – and to privilege alternatives to detention,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The experts will submit their final report to the UN Human Rights Council in the coming months, according to the statement. \u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sweden must step up efforts to fight systemic racism and focus on strategies to restore trust between police and minority groups, the UN said on Friday. Members of a UN Human Rights Council-appointed group of independent experts on advancing racial justice and equality said they were \u201cdeeply concerned\u201d by Sweden\u2019s reluctance to collect data disaggregated …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":87432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_108372464460192_245495985553329":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[40,346,69,172],"class_list":["post-87431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","tag-europe","tag-racism","tag-sweden","tag-united-nations"],"yoast_head":"\n