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Nine out of ten Swedes back CCTV in public places: survey

Nine out of ten Swedes are positive about having CCTV cameras in public places, a new survey by Lund University shows.

Published: 20 April 2018 08:50 CEST
Nine out of ten Swedes back CCTV in public places: survey
File photo of a CCTV camera. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Sweden has traditionally been more reluctant to use video surveillance than many other European countries, but the results of the new survey suggests that the Swedish public has let go of many of its doubts in the area.

“Not only is the public positive about CCTV, they also express a clear wish for more cameras,” Markus Lahtinen, researcher and lecturer in informatics at Lund University said in a statement.

READ ALSO: Will CCTV curb crime in Stockholm's suburbs?


Police patrolling Rinkeby and Tensta. Photo: Vilhelm Stokstad/TT

Three quarters of those who responded said they do not think that CCTV on streets and squares is an invasion of their privacy. Two thirds meanwhile said that security cameras in their residential area would not be a threat to their privacy.

More than 80 percent of those who took part in the study believe cameras can prevent crime and provide good support for crime prevention.

IN DEPTH: How CCTV can help police working on the front lines in Stockholm's vulnerable suburbs

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CRIME

Sweden charges Islamic State woman in landmark trial

Swedish prosecutors said they have brought genocide charges against a woman in the country's first court case over crimes committed by the Islamic State group against the Yazidi minority.

Published: 20 September 2024 07:15 CEST
Sweden charges Islamic State woman in landmark trial

A prosecutor told AFP the 52-year-old woman was accused of keeping Yazidi women and children as slaves at her home in Syria between 2014 and 2016.

She was charged with “genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes” on the grounds that her actions formed part of a broader campaign by the group (IS or Isis) against the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi minority.

The woman, who is a Swedish citizen, is in jail having already been sentenced by a Swedish court to six years in prison in 2022 for allowing her 12-year-old son to be recruited as a child soldier for Isis.

Senior prosecutor Reena Devgun told AFP that while investigating that case, authorities had received witness reports “that told us that she had kept slaves in Raqqa,” the former stronghold of the Islamic State group in northern Syria, prompting further investigations.

“If you take in Yazidis into your household when you are an Isis member or the wife of an Isis member and treat them this way, I argue that you are participating” in the broader campaign against them, Devgun said.

Devgun said the woman had kept nine people, three women and six children, in her home “as slaves”.

The women and children – who were kept in the house for between 20 days and seven months – were among other things made to perform household tasks.

Devgun said they had also been photographed, which the prosecutor argued “was done with the intention that they would be sold off”.

Evidence had mainly been gathered through witness accounts, from the victims and others that had visited the home at the time.

The crimes, which the woman denies, can carry a life sentence in Sweden.

Stockholm’s District Court said in a statement that the trial was scheduled to start on October 7th and was expected to last two months.

Around 300 Swedes or Swedish residents, a quarter of them women, joined IS in Syria and Iraq, mostly in 2013 and 2014, according to Sweden’s intelligence service Säpo.

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