Sweden is a country with a well-deserved reputation for tolerance. So its horrifying to find out that their police have been keeping an illegal database of Roma:
Swedish police have established a database of Roma, the force said on Monday, confirming a newspaper report that a government minister condemned as "unethical, unacceptable and illegal".
Daily Dagens Nyheter said the file was in the form of a genealogical tree covering 4,029 Roma, many of who had no criminal record and more than 1,000 are children.
Gathering directories based on ethnicity is illegal in Sweden, part of privacy rights that have for decades been enshrined in Swedish law. Police said they were seeking prosecutors' advice on the handling of the issue.
In case anyone is unaware, the Roma are victims of widespread persecution, including attempted genocide. Against that backdrop, its as if they were keeping a database of Jews.
There's been strong political condemnation, but as yet no resignations. As the Pirate Party points out, "Ministers of Justice have resigned for considerably less in the past". But beyond that, there needs to be prosecutions, and a thorough investigation of what else the police and government are illegally databasing.
