Peter Springare, who has repeatedly voiced his frustration over the rising level of migrant crime in Sweden, is now being investigated by authorities who claim he had used the police data system "in a wrongful way," hacking his way into police computers and using police statistics for private purposes, Swedish national broadcaster SVT reported.
In order to prevent fellow police officers from doing as Peter Springare, Eliasson laid down the rules and urged his employees to only use the police database when necessary. Although Police communications manager Mats Nylén specifically told SVT that the letter rather serves a clarification, Eliasson's discontent with the negative publicity Springare keeps generating for the Swedish police is obvious.
"He is paid to conduct policing, not to debate," Mats Nylén told SVT, stressing that while Springare is surely covered by the freedom of speech, he may not use the police database for private debate.
Being a rebel in uniform is, indeed, no mean feat. Previously, Springare was charged with inciting racial hatred for merely stressing the need for a more open debate on the sensitive issue of migrant crime, yet was surprisingly cleared of the charges.
In Sweden, Springare became a household name as a cop who dared to confront the system and broke the taboo on revealing perpetrators' nationality, despite the 42 years in police service under his belt. In early February, he rose to national fame with a fiery Facebook post that highlighted immigrants' overrepresentation in violent crime.
After the authorities and the mainstream media's verbal attack on Springare as a "hatemonger" and "peddler of racism," a support group was started on Facebook named Stand up for Peter Springare, which quickly gathered some 200,000 members (in a nation of 10 million).
Snart 200 000 medlemmar!
— Modesty Blaise (@modestyblaise67) February 19, 2017
Heja heja! #springare pic.twitter.com/otNNHKXXrx
"I just feel so sorry for the victims in all these cases. I can say that the majority are, themselves, immigrants. This fact makes me neither Nazi nor racist," Springare claimed in a post.
Sweden singles itself out by keeping no statistics on immigrant crime. In mainstream Swedish media, reporting a criminal's ethnicity is unthinkable, which has led to accusations of ineffective crime prevention.
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