Two separate music festivals in Sweden have been hit with multiple reports of rape and sexual assault by dozens of attending women.
Police recorded five reports of rape and 12 of sexual molestation at Sweden’s biggest music festival, the three-day-long Bravalla, while 35 sexual molestation reports were filed at Putte i Parken, a festival in Karlstad. A 12-year-old girl was the youngest victim at the festivals, specifically at Putte i Parken. Both concerts took place last weekend.
Some sources, like U.K.’s The Telegraph, are describing the seven suspected attackers at Putte i Parken as “migrant youths,” but Swedish police have refused to identify them aside from describing them as “young men,” pending further investigation.
READ MORE: Stanford rape case: Swedish “heroes” who stopped Brock Turner’s attack speak out
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven described the situation as “totally unacceptable” and said that laws on sexual assault would be tightened.
“We are in the process of reviewing them,” he said in a speech at a political seminar. “It’s also important that we continue to ensure that police, prosecutors and other officials are better equipped to investigate such crimes and actually catch the perpetrators.”
READ MORE: Sex assault survivor and drug expert weigh in on problems plaguing music festivals
Mumford & Sons headlined the three-day Bravalla festival with German metal group Rammstein, rapper Macklemore and many more.
The British folk rockers posted a letter to their Facebook page, stating that they refuse to play any Swedish festivals again until the sexual assaults stop.
The large number of sexual-assault reports at Bravalla and Putte i Parken come six months after police in Sweden were accused of not publicly disclosing info on similar attacks that took place at a festival in Stockholm last summer. There was also a string of sexual assaults and robberies on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, Germany.
READ MORE: Police: Women made to “run gauntlet” in Cologne New Year’s attacks
In neighbouring Denmark, where the annual week-long Roskilde rock festival attended by 130,000 people took place, police said they had reports of five cases of alleged rape or sexual assault, which police officer Carsten Andersen described as “nothing out of the ordinary at such a big event, although every single case is too much.”
With files from The Associated Press
Comments