Sargon of Akkad has made a post on therationalists.org to show his sources concerning his follow up video about Sweden’s “rape culture”. In the first youtube video he blames Sweden’s “rape culture” on the rising number of Islamic immigrants. His first video can be seen on his youtube channel here. The reason Sargon is citing his sources is because he wants to show that rape culture exists in Sweden and because he has been somewhat criticised for this position (one usually adopted by feminist critics). The accusation against Sargon is that he is employing a double standard: denying the existence of rape culture in the UK, US and Canada (and elsewhere) when he’s arguing against SJWs but insisting there is one when talking about Islamic immigrants.

Grateful to Sargon for posting his sources, I have checked them all and will be sharing my findings here in this post. What I was surprised to find (well, not really given that these are sources to defend the idea of a rape culture) is that all Sargon’s sources come from feminist sources.

Many of his sources are second or third hand and all share the same original source. As we are going through them one-by-one I will be identifying the original sources. Sargon’s sources vary in quality from the totally unrealiable: personal blogs, anonymous posts paraphrasing radio shows, Huffington Post articles by feminist-fashion bloggers, etc. to much more reliable government statistics taken from their original websites. Sometimes the sources chosen by Sargon contradict each other or, when we read the entire documents, the sources cited to prove one particular point will also contain material contradicting his entire position.

Sargon posts quite a lot of different sources that all report information gleaned from the same place; a cynical person would say that is an attempt to inflate the apparant number of sources and hide the origin of some of the sources. I am not that cynical; I just don’t think Sargon has researched the topic very well and rushed to conclusions.

So, I’ll be checking each source, hyperlinked by Sargon in his article, one-by-one. Starting with…

Sweden is not in some way exceptional when it comes to encouraging rape victims to report crimes to the police. Every Western nation does this, with state funding in countries like Britain and Norway providing dozens of rape crisis centres and many feminist activists agitating on the subject.

These first two sources say nothing about the point at hand. The point is whether Sweden is some way exceptional when it comes to encouraging victims to report rape; Sargon says no but the two sources he provides are simply websites providing information about rape crisis centres. These sources alone tell us nothing about reporting rapes, and nothing about Sweden. It simply shows that there are State funded recourses in Britain and Norway.

The first link opens up a publication put out by Amnesty International. This is a very interesting document that merits a whole post to itself. But my aim to check Sargon’s sources against his claims not critique the sources themselves. It’s worth pointing for now that the Amnesty document is a activism piece with a appeal for donations at the bottom. The statistics footnoted often lead not to an original source, say a government report or academic study but a further comment. For example: after stating that the number of rapes reported in Finland has risen to more than 900 in 2008, the footnote reveals not the source of this statistic but the additional comment that sexual assaults have also risen. The purpose of the document is to campaign for more government involvement in the investigation and prosecution of rape cases in Scandinavia. Information is presented to paint the worse possible picture with statistics presented in an inconsistent manner. This makes it quite a hard document to pull information from. The intention of the author(s) is to persuade people to join and assist the cause not to present the bare facts. More on this later but first, we’ll take a look at Sargon’s other sources.

Sargon’s Sources: Feminist journalist Katrin Bennhold & feminist activist Tove Smaadahl

Let’s take a look at the next two sources in Sargon’s article (quoted above). The first, on the estimated 10-20% of reported rapes in Sweden, comes from an pseudonymous post on Liveleak. Whatever you’re feelings on the reliability of Liveleak, the post cited by Sargon is not a reliable source. The Liveleak article itself, is an interpretation of information taken from another source, Swedish Public Radio, that took it’s stats from BRÅ (The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention) but posted no actual reference. The source Sargon should have been checking and then citing is the original not the third-hand LiveLeak piece. It is curious that Sargon is using a third-hand account instead of going straight to the source – especially when he does cite BRÅ later in his article.

The next source, 20% of reported rapes in Norway, comes from a article written by Nick Jardine for Business Insider. His source is a 2011 New York Times article written by feminist journalist Katrin Bennhold. Jardine’s article is just a summary of Bennhold’s earlier piece, he adds no new information nor does he do anything other than accept her account at face value. Her main source for the 20% of unreported rapes in Norway comes from Tove Smaadahl, the general manager of the Secretariat of the Shelter Movement. This is an organsition steeped in “feminist ideology” (their words) and dedicted to ending the “sickness” they believe they can see in society that perpetuates the oppression of women.

Smaadahl, is a feminist campaigner and 2012 winner of the Norwegian Association of Women’s Rights Gina Krog Prize. Just because the stats come from a feminist organisation doesn’t automatically mean they are incorrect but the fact remains that these organisations have a interest in producing stats that support their narrative. Citing them certainly doesn’t help Sargon’s claim that he’s not just taking the feminist postion on “rape culture” and uncritically using it for his argument. A question mark hangs over Sargon’s decision to cite Jardine’s article as his source rather than Bennhold’s. The cynical interpretation would be that this was an accident to mask the true source.

The thrust of Bennhold’s NY Times article is: 80% of rapes go unreported in Norway because the majority of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim; these are hard to prove in court and for various reasons, it is suggested, the victims don’t report the crime. As always, it is difficult to know the percentage of unreported anything because, by their very definition, they go unreported. The statistics come from surveys carried out by organisations asking respondents if they have been raped but did not report it. Obviously, the final statistics published depend on who is asking the questions, who is asked, how the questions are worded and the answers are recorded, and how the conclusions are drawn. No matter, Sargon uses these sources to point out that reported rapes in Scandinavian countries are broadly similar: 20%

Again, I’m not examining the claims made in Sargon’s sources but looking to see who his sources of information are and how he has used this information.

Sargon’s sources: The Amnesty International report

After citing sources that claim unreported rapes in Norway and Sweden to both be around 20% Sargon goes on to say that the number of reported rapes in Norway is half that of rapes reported in Sweden:

The report is, of course, the Amnesty International one mentioned above. And in the report they do account for the greater number of reported rapes in Sweden. Briefly:

Norway only counts rape cases

Sweden counts acts of rape

of rape In Norway the police investigate rape

investigate rape In Sweden prosecutors investigate rape

investigate rape There is a difference in the willingness to report rape

to report rape There is a difference is how those who report rape are treated

There is a difference in the definition of rape

The purpose of the Amnesty document (cited by Sargon) is to argue for a worldwide consensus on how rapes are reported, investigated, and prosecuted as well as how rape victims are treated. They don’t think that Sweden’s tough measures are sufficient.

Notwithstanding that Sargon has already cited sources that claim that unreported rapes in Norway (upper limit 20%) and unreported rapes in Sweden (upper limit 20%) are the same. He claims that the report states that the number of reported rapes in Norway is half that of Sweden. It does not. Here’s what the document does say:

The report says that in 2008 there were 949 reported rates in Norway while in the same year there were over 4000 reported in Sweden. However, they go on to qualify this statistic: in Norway they record cases of rape whereas in Sweden they report acts of rape. Remember that Sargon claimed in his article the report did not account for the difference in reported rapes.

The report also attributes the increase to the expanded legal definition of rape and the increased willingness to report rape. We need to be careful here not to assume that both the expanded legal definitions of rape and the willingness of victims to report rape are identical in both Norway and Sweden. Norwegians and Swedes may be more willing to report rape but the Swedes may be far more willing report rape then their Norwegian counterparts. The report offers no information on the difference, if any, of the willingness of people to report rape in Norway or Sweden.

There is something else of interest in the Anmesty document that might explain the difference between Norway and Sweden. In Sweden it is the prosecutor and not the police that leads the rape investigation. I will make no claims based on this information but point out that how rapes are investigated may play an important part in how many rapes are reported. I bring it up because Sargon has entirely overlooked police procedure in the two countries. This is strange because his source, the Amnesty document, makes a very big deal out of it.

The argument in the document is that reports of rape are higher in Norway and Sweden than in Denmark and Finland precisely because of the way that rapes are investigated and the resources on offer for those who report rape. In other words, how a country investigates rape impacts the number of rapes reported. Does this explain Sweden’s higher rate of reported rapes? The Amnesty document certainly thinks it does. Remember Sargon claimed that the report did not account for the difference in reported rapes between the two countries when if fact their account of the difference forms the main thrust of their demands. In short: Sweden treats reporters of rape better than Norway (but for Amnesty, a lot more could be done.)

Sargon is citing a document to support his argument that contradicts the point he is trying to make. I’m not interested, in this article, in how accurate or credible the report is but in how Sargon has used it as a source.

Does an increase in reports of rape mean there are more rapes?

Sargon finds this snippet from the Amnesty report very interesting:

Most important to note, however, is that despite all of these presumed reasons that rape reporting has increased, the report states: It is not possible to exclude the possibility that the increase in reporting may reflect an actual increase in the number of rapes in Finland, Norway and Sweden. (Page 4/5) The report does not refute the idea that more rapes occurring accounts for more rapes being reported.

Here, he has taken a guess by the author of the document – that perhaps the increase in reported rapes is due to the increase in the number of rapes – and used it to hint that there are indeed more rapes in Sweden. This isn’t citing evidence but citing speculation. This is unsurprising since both Sargon and author of the document are campaigning against “rape culture” albeit to make different points.

How excessively broad are Sweden’s rape laws?

Sargon writes:

Of course, the attempt to explain this come from the additional caveat that Sweden’s rape laws are incredibly broad compared to other Western nations and that explains the excessive number of reported rapes in Sweden.

We have already seen that by focusing on the number of reports of rape Sargon has ignored the impact of how rapes are investigated. Simply, if you are going to be treated better in Sweden and believe you have a better chance of a positive outcome you will be more likely to report a rape than in Norway. This has little to do with the letter of the law but how the laws are interpreted and acted upon.

Sargon’s next couple of links point to:

He doesn’t allow for how the laws are interpreted, investigated and enforced (which would dramatically effect the number of reports) but what about the quality of his sources?

The first is a direct link to the Sexual Offences ACT 2003 posted on legislation.gov.uk nothing wrong with this source. The second however is a link to a PDF version of The General and Civil Penal Code put out by the Norwegian government, nothing wrong with his source (but a page number would have been nice). The crucial source, the Swedish one, however is a link to a personal blog. This blogger has published an article on the Swedish law as he interprets it. He does provides links to his sources but they are not helpful to people who don’t speak Swedish. The bit that Sargon quotes – the verbose summary of the law – is given a citation (on the personal blog) but it leads to an error page. None of this means that the information is incorrect but that it is unrealible.

The point that Sargon is trying to make is, helpfully, summarised by himself as:

Aside from being more verbose, this is almost identical to Norwegian rape laws and covers exactly the same circumstances. Any person who is unable to give informed consent to sexual intercourse or a comparable sexual act is treated as a victim of rape.

What he has given us in terms of sources is woefully inadequate. There just is not enough information here for us to go on. It is because it is the interpretation of the law and the enforcement of the law that will have the major effect on the number of reported rapes. Sargon needs to show that, for example, what Swedes consider to be “circumstances comparable to sexual intercourse” is the same thing as what Norwegians mean by “engaging in sexual acts.” Besides, he has already provided a source that makes this explicit, the Amnesty document.

Remember, Sargon needs to provide sources that support his claim that the increased number of reported rapes in Sweden is due to an increase in the number of rapes and not due to a difference in how rapes are reported, investigated, the expections of those who make reports and how all these information is collected and catalogued.

Sargon, in a nutshell, needs to show that Swedish rape laws are not particularly draconian and that there is no significant difference in how reports of rape are handled. He ignores the latter, so let’s look at the former.

Are Swedish rape laws particularly draconian?

Sargon wants us to think not.

The first source, 69 cases of rape, is a Wikipedia entry that clearly makes the point Sargon wants to ignore:

There have been several international comparisons made, placing Sweden at the top end of the number of reported rapes. However, police procedures and legal definitions vary widely across countries, which makes it difficult to compare rape statistics.[10][11][12][13] For example, Sweden reformed its sex crime legislation and made the legal definition of rape much wider in 2005,[3][4][10][14] which largely explains a significant increase in the number of reported rapes in the ten-year period of 2004-2013.[15][16] The Swedish police also record each instance of sexual violence in every case separately, leading to an inflated number of cases compared to other countries.[10][13][17] Additionally, the Swedish police have improved the handling of rape cases, in an effort to increase the number of crimes reported.[10][16][18][19]

We see here the multiple cited sources that we cannot compare Swedish statistics with other countries because of:

Different police procedures

Widely varying legal definitions

Swedish police handling of rape cases designed to increase the number of reported crimes

The second source, 20,300 sexual offenses reported, comes from BRÅ (The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention) a good source but if we read the actual document they make it clear that:

It is important to note that sexual crimes include a wide array of offenses – everything from minor events, such as indecent exposure, to the very serious events, such as rape.

They also admit that there has been a decline in sexual assaults in recent years but this is because “developments are difficult to interpret.” These developments are presumably the newly difficult to navigate borders between sexual assault and rape in Sweden. But the point Sargon wants to make is that:

Rapes are not being conflated with less-severe sexual crimes being committed. They are distinct categories.

His third source for rape categories is Dominique Mosbergen writing for that bastion of truth The Huffington Post. Her article is about how the definition of rape differs from country to country. She cites a comment by George Galloway (of the far-left Respect Party) that Julian Assange would not be guilty of rape under British Law and how the leader of his Party, Salma Yaqoob “regretted and condemned” his comments. Mosbergen also cites former Conserative MP Louise Mensch who argues that Assange is guilty of rape in Sweden and ought to be considered so in Britain. Anyone, she says, who says otherwise is repellent.

Mosbergen points out in her article that Assange is guilty of third-degree rape in Sweden. Under UK law and almost everywhere else on Earth, Assange, if he is considered guilty of a crime, would be guilty of a “less-severe sexual crime” but in Sweden he is accused of rape. Sargon claims however that in Sweden: “Rapes are not being conflated with less-severe sexual crimes being committed.” What are these less serious crimes? More importantly – once we know what these crimes are – how do they compare with countries other than Sweden? The point is that Sargon wants to say that what is considered as rape in Sweden is not really that much different to what is considered and recorded as rape in similar countries but the source his cites says the exact opposite. Indeed, everyone says otherwise. Even Yaqoob and Mensch agree, their argument is that Britain should follow Sweden’s lead.

Sargon’s next source, a Huffington Post article by Karin Wasteson, is intended to show that Sweden’s rape laws do not “encapsulate every rape that occurs as it does not even include the concept of consent.” Wasteson, a journalist specialises in feminist fashion issues (see the headlines in the image below) argues in her pieces that while people outside of Sweden claim that the Swedish definition of rape is broader than anywhere else they ignore the fact that conviction rates and prison sentences for those convicted are one of the lowest in Europe. Note that Wasteson is not talking about the number of reported rapes or number of rapes which is what Sargon is talking about but the punishment and likelihood of punishment for those convicted of rape.

The issue of consent here is not about reporting rape but convicting rapists. Wasteson is concerned about the fact that, as she interprets it, under Swedish law a women who surrenders, or who can no longer struggle after being raped by first offender will not be considered to have been raped by anyone who comes after him. An important consideration for us is that Sargon has claimed that Norwegian and Swedish rape laws are almost identical but when we look at one of his posted sources on the laws in Norway that show that Norway does not have the same laws about consent:

The strangest source that Sargon cites in order to show that Swedish laws on rape are not all that draconian is the prosecutor in Assange’s rape case. What prosecutor is going to admit the case in which he or she is prosecuting rests on draconian laws? Imagine someone asked Sargon if the application of the laws in, say, North Korea were excessively harsh or severe and he replied: “no, according to the state prosecutors they are not.”

Sargon’s conclusion on Swedish rape laws and stats on rapes reported

Before moving onto looking at the perpetrators of rape in Sweden, Sargon sums up his position on Swedish rape laws:

Sargon has made several claims, some of them contradictory, and stated his sources. However, as we have seen, many of these sources are unrealiable. I have to say kudos for him, for stating his sources for all to see. For his statistics on reported rape his sources are:

An Amnesty International activism piece that says that Sweden’s higher figures are due to the fact that Swedish investigates rape claims differently to other Scandinavian countries. Their argument is not that Denmark, Finland and Norway need to catch up but that Sweden is not going far enough. However, the point is made that Swedish figures are much higher because of the way reported rapes are investigated.

piece that says that Sweden’s higher figures are due to the fact that Swedish investigates rape claims differently to other Scandinavian countries. Their argument is not that Denmark, Finland and Norway need to catch up but that Sweden is not going far enough. However, the point is made that Swedish figures are much higher because of the way reported rapes are investigated. Feminist Journalist Katrin Bennhold . Her article is based on information she got from feminist activist Tove Smaadahl. The thrust of Bennhold’s article is that 80% of rapes go unreported because the victims know their attacker and these rape cases are difficult to prove in court. Her concern, like Kate Wasteson is that Sweden is not doing enough to prosecute rape.

. Her article is based on information she got from feminist activist Tove Smaadahl. The thrust of Bennhold’s article is that 80% of rapes go unreported because the victims know their attacker and these rape cases are difficult to prove in court. Her concern, like Kate Wasteson is that Sweden is not doing enough to prosecute rape. Feminist activist Tove Smaadahl. She is Bennhold’s source for rape statistics and interpretations. Smaadahl is a spokeswoman for an women’s organisation that self report being anchored in feminist ideology and see modern society as sick due to the oppression of women.

Sargon first provides sources to claim that reported rapes in both Norway and Sweden are similar: 20% of actual rapes. But then goes on to claim that Norway has half the number of reported rapes that Sweden. He can do this because the percentages are based on estimates; when he wants to say they are identical he can compare the upper limits but when he wants to show a different he compares the lower limit of Norway with the upper limit of Sweden.

He also claims that the source (Amnesty document) does not account for the different number of rapes reported in Norway and Sweden when in fact the whole report is about this difference.

The biggest difference – something Sargon completely overlooks – is how rapes are investigated and how reporters are treated in Sweden. According to the Amnesty report, Finland does the least for reporters of rape and has far fewer reported rapes than Sweden. Norway does more for those who report rape and has higher rates of reporting. Sweden does the most including having the prosecutors not the police investigate the reports and has the highest rate of reports.

All of the sources cited by Sargon make the same points:

You can not compare rape statistics by country Sweden has the broadest definition of rape Different police procedure in Sweden accounts for higher number of reported rapes

But Sargon refuses to take the word of his own sources and tries to claim that these factors do not make Swedish rape laws exceptional. To do this he cites even more feminist authors who want to show that there is an out of control rape culture in Sweden.

To be clear: Sargon’s claim is that the rape laws in Sweden are not draconian. So he cites feminist activists who believe that Swedish laws are not draconian enough

To prove his point he cites feminist LGBT activist writer Dominique Mosbergen. He wants to claim that Sweden categorises rapes into three orders of severity and not “everything is rape.” But these categories are all categories of rape and the focus of Mosbergen’s article is on feminist reaction to male politicians pointing out that Assange, accused of rape in Sweden, would not be accused of rape in Britain or the US. She is not saying that in Sweden Assange is not considered to have committed rape but that he is accused of rape.

In addition, in an attempt to show that Swedish rape laws are not that strict Sargon cites another feminist writer, Kate Wasteson whose article is about what she considers to be light sentences and low conviction rapes for accused rapists in Sweden. Sargon wants to use her article to say that the Swedish definition of rape is not excessively broad because it does not factor in consent (when other countries do) but Wasteson’s article is about punishments not reports. The feminist fashion writer says nothing about the exceptional nature (or not) of the definitions of rape in Sweden.

Summing up then…

Sargon is arguing for the existence of a rape culture in Sweden. Although he is doing this for different reasons than most feminist activists he is happy to use them as his source material. Despite all but the most radical feminist literature claiming it is not possible to compare Swedish rape stats with other countries Sargon wants to ignore the more reasonable evidence and go along with the activists. He plays down the huge differences in the way rape is defined and investigated in Sweden because his feminist sources tell him the difference is no big deal.

In PART 2 we’ll be looking at Sargon’s claims about the perpetrators of rape in Sweden.