Stockholm police end 'racial profiling' push
Swedish police announced on Friday that officers would no longer be asking public transport users for identification, after their past efforts to deport undocumented migrants were branded as racial profiling.
Centre Party MP Johan Hedin said last month that the push was "not only a crime against good taste, but also against the law and should stop immediately".
Even though the police push was later found to be legal, officers decided to put a stop to the project on Friday.
They said that what was essentially a small part of the police's work was being subjected to too much public scrutiny to be considered worthwhile.
The project entitled Reva, which stands for Rättssäkert och effektivt verkställighetsarbete ('Legal and effective execution of policy'), saw officers allegedly targeting "foreign-looking" commuters on Stockholm's underground railway lines.
Reva was blasted by politicians and immigrants' rights activists alike who claimed officers were racially profiling.
Furthermore, nine out of ten people that police questioned turned out to have the right to live in Sweden.
Reacting to the presence of police in the Stockholm metro system, activists took to social media sites Twitter and Facebook to warn other commuters and map out where the officers were performing checks.
TT/The Local/og
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Centre Party MP Johan Hedin said last month that the push was "not only a crime against good taste, but also against the law and should stop immediately".
Even though the police push was later found to be legal, officers decided to put a stop to the project on Friday.
They said that what was essentially a small part of the police's work was being subjected to too much public scrutiny to be considered worthwhile.
The project entitled Reva, which stands for Rättssäkert och effektivt verkställighetsarbete ('Legal and effective execution of policy'), saw officers allegedly targeting "foreign-looking" commuters on Stockholm's underground railway lines.
Reva was blasted by politicians and immigrants' rights activists alike who claimed officers were racially profiling.
Furthermore, nine out of ten people that police questioned turned out to have the right to live in Sweden.
Reacting to the presence of police in the Stockholm metro system, activists took to social media sites Twitter and Facebook to warn other commuters and map out where the officers were performing checks.
TT/The Local/og
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