In the previous post we looked at the sources Sargon of Akkad provided to support his claims about Sweden’s “rape culture.” His argument is that the rape laws in Sweden are not exceptionally draconian. The reason Sargon is making this claim – one made regularly by many feminist activists – is that he wants to say that the far greater number of reported rapes in Sweden is not due to any of the following:

That Sweden records acts of rape instead of cases of rape

instead of That Sweden uses a far broader definition of rape than other countries

of rape than other countries That in Sweden prosecutors not police investigate rape reports

not police investigate rape reports That the law was updated in Sweden with the aim of decreasing the percentage of unreported rapes, or in other words raise the number of reported rapes

The increased willingness of people to report rape

Instead, he wants to suggest that far higher number of reports of rape in Sweden is due to an increase in the number of rapes committed. However, all the sources Sargon provides actually suggest that all the factors listed above are the cause of Sweden’s far higher report figures.

We saw that almost all of Sargon’s sources originated from feminist activist sources. They want to argue that while Sweden is a step in the right direction, as far as they are concerned, the updated laws don’t do enough and other countries are lagging behind. The Amnesty International document, cited by Sargon, speculated that although the dramatically increased rape reports in Sweden are largely due to the change in how reports are investigated and recorded there may also have been an increase in the number of rapes committed. Sargon took this speculation that there may be more rapes committed in recent years and ran with it.

My aim was not to critique the information contained within Sargon’s sources but Sargon’s use of the sources he cites to support his argument. We saw that none of sources supplied supported his claim that the rape laws in Sweden are not excessively draconian. We also saw that many of the sources cited to support Sargon’s argument actually contradicted what he was attempting to show. Finally, we saw that Sargon’s biggest error was to ignore a factor pointed out in most of his sources: police procedure and how rape reports are investigated. Click here to see the analysis of Sargon’s sources.

Perpetrators of rape in Sweden

In the previous post we were looking at reporters of rape now let’s turn to Sargon’s sources about the perpetrators of rape in Sweden. Like before, we’ll go source-by-source.

Sargon claims that BRÅ reported that 77% of rapes were committed by non-native immigrants. The source he provides is a scanned PDF of the original document. Unfortunately, this document is in Swedish however there is a brief section in English at the back. Nevermind, let’s check the stats.

The table shows the estimated figures regarding reports of various type of crime. Not crimes committed as Sargon claims.

The first set of numbers is the percentage of immigrants, the second is the children of immigrant and the third is Swedes. The report defines immigrants as anyone registered in Sweden but born in another country. The children of immigrants are those born in Sweden but with at least one parent born in another country. The stats do not distinguish between immigrants, a Christian from Germany, a Jew from France, Hindu from India or Muslim from Iran would all raise the immigrant percentage for any crime committed. If they married a Swede and had a child, and this child went on to commit a crime they would figure in the middle column. However, later during the analyis of the figures they distinguish immigrants by Nordic and non-Nordic.

The first category is Mord och dråp (inkl, försök) in English: Murder and manslaughter (including attempted). We can see the figures are: 30% immigrants, 10% immigrant children and 58% Swedes.

The next two categories are the figures for assaults against women. The first are reports of women being assaulted by strangers and the second is for women assaulted by acquaintances. The asterisk by both of these entries means that these figures refer to only assaults that occurred outside of the home. We see Swedish perpetrators account for 64% and 68%.

The next two categories are for assaults against men with similar percentages. Then there are the statistics for crimes against liberty and peace with similar stats to the above.

Now we come to the rape reports (highlighted in blue). We see that 38% of reported rapes are committed by immigrants compared to 39% of Swedes.

The next category is for other sexual offenses: 79% committed by Swedes.

Sargon cited this source to support his claim that “77% of rapes were committed by non-native immigrants” but his source does not support this figure at all. The actual figure is 38%

Let’s look at the analysis of the figures in the report:

Immigrants from Norway and Denmark were registered for crimes twice that of the equivalent proportion of Swedes. Finns were registered for more than twice. Now let’s look at immigrants from South-East Asia:

Immigrants from South East Asia display three times less crime participation.

All crime and serious crimes (rape, murder and manslaughter)

The report stats that 80% of all crimes in the 90s were committed by Swedes. However, they point out the disproportion in the statistics when it comes to serious crimes. Immigrants are over-represented for these crimes. This does not mean more immigrants committed these crimes than Swedes but that the percentages among immigrant are higher for rape than for, say, theft from a motor vehicle: 38% compared to 12%.

16% of registered crimes in 1993 were committed by immigrants. These immigrants are both Nordic and non-Nordic; the crime percentages for Danes and Norwegians were twice that of Swedes. And Finns represented more than twice. Immigrants from South-East Asia committed three times less crimes. However, when immigrants did commit crimes there was a disproportionate about of serious crime (rape, murder, manslaughter) compare to less serious crimes committed. Second-generation immigrants committed a much lower percentage of crimes compare to their parents.

Sargon’s figure of 77% of rapes committed by immigrants is not supported anywhere in this source. Not even close.

Let’s look at Sargon’s next source. It is taken from the website of Swedish tabloid Dagbladet. To get an idea of the credibility of this source, on the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dagbladet’s front page story was a piece about children and swearing. The website is published by Aller Media, a publisher of women’s magazines in the Nordic countries.

The Dagbladet article states that there were 41 assault rapes reported in Olso in 3 years, all of which were perpertrated by non-Western immigrants. The report does not say that 90% of the victims were native Norwegian women. This does not mean that this statistic is false only that it is not in the source Sargon provided. The victims are not mentioned at all other than to say they were women. Dagbladet doesn’t say how many rapists committed these rapes. Therefore we don’t know from this source whether, say, 3 non-Western rapists (assumed male) raped on averaged one women a month each for three years or 10 men who raped four women each over a three year period. Just four men were arrested, so we don’t know how many men were involved.

Dagbladet’s source was from Olso Police Violence and Sexual Section, Hanne Kristin Rodhe who is now a public speaker and crime fiction writer. I found some more details on NRK.no

In 2009 there were 21 reported assault rapes in Oslo, almost double the number from the previous year, which was 11. Of the 21 women, 17 weere reported as looking Nordic; in 2008, 9 of the 11 women looked Nordic. This supports Sargon’s figure of 90% of the victims being native Norwegian women. Four men were arrested for these crimes and were all non-Western; the men not arrested were also described by the victims as of non-Western appearance. Below, I have included an English translation of Rohde’s comment on the men.

So we do not know how many rapists there were in this three year rape spree. But we be surprised if each rapist only raped one women. Something we do know that the rape rate is falling. In 2014 rape overall (all kinds of rape as defined by Norwegian law) is down 20% from the previous year and numbered 77 in total. Crime itself was down by 9.2%. If Muslims were responsible for an increase in rapes we would expect, as the number of Muslim immigrants increases, the crime figures to rise not fall.

Sargon’s sources were not wrong but they were not very reliable. He could have put a bit more effort in to find better ones. He mis-cited the 90% of victims being Nordic women but this statistic was true nevertheless. What is concerning however is Sargon’s obvious scaremongering. In other videos about scaremongering in Britain, the US and Canada, Sargon has been rightly critical but here when he wants argue for the existence of a “rape culture” he doesn’t seem to mind a bit of scaremongering. These rapes were terrible and each instance was a horrific crime. In no way do I want to downplay the seriousness for the individuals involved however the fact remains that very few men were involved. Just a handful of rapists could have been responsible for these terrible crimes. Can we say that the actions of these men represent a rape culture? If there were, say, 20 football hooligans who together, over a three year period in Oslo, carried out 41 acts of hooliganism would we be justified in saying Olso has a culture of hooliganism? Of course not.

Sargon’s next source to support the claim that 90% of men sentenced for rape in Stavanger were non-Native comes from right-wing blogger Nina Hjerpset-Østlie. Writing for the controversial Document.no (the controversy is largely due to the fact that it is rightwing and has an association with Anders Brevik). She says that over three years there were 19 men convicted of rape: 3 Norwegians, a Pole, 10 Africans and 5 Asians. Three men, the natives, make up more that 15% of the whole so the figure of 90% can not be correct. Since Islam is under focus, if we lump in the Pole with the Norwegians that makes the breakdown: 4 European to 15 African and Asians; bringing the figures to around 79% non-European. If you’re wondering why we assume the Pole is not a Muslim, why are we assuming the Africans and Asians are Muslim?

Sargon’s 90% claim is wrong but not a huge way out. The small number of men involved presents the same difficulties as in the Oslo case discussed above.

Following through Hjerpset-Østlie’s cited sources we end up back at NRK.no below I have put an English translation.

Note: We can see from the report that seven of the cases were for assault rapes. This is significant because the focus of the Olso cases was on assault rapes alone. It is also worth noting that while Sargon’s focus is on rape culture and Islam the largest group of non-Natives were Africans and then Asians. None of the reports mention the religion of the Africans (or the Asians) are they from Islamic African countries or not? We don’t know.

Let’s look at the next couple of sources Sargon has provided:

The first source is familiar to us, the Amnesty campaign document. A minor quibble first, Sargon gives the page number as 8 but on the document it is page 4. The Adobe viewer, if you read it on your computer, counts the cover of document as page 1 which is probably the cause of the confusion. Sargon goes onto say “this is very unsual and not for reasons you might expect.” I would expect the reason for the increase to be due to the reforms that have been undertaken in Norway that have led to this rise. Sure enough, this is what Sargon’s source says, on the same page.

The next source, 80% of rapes in the US, is a link to the website of RAINN (Rape Abuse and Incest National Network, the largest anti-sexual assault organisation in the US) and they have cited their figures as coming from the US Dept. of Justice. There is nothing wrong with Sargon’s source nor his point that 80% of rapes in the US are perpetrated by someone known to the victim.

Sargon’s next link is to a government produced report in PDF format entitled An Overview of Sexual Offending in England and Wales. He also provides a screenshot of a graph from page 16 (would have been nice if he’d put the page number himself). A slight quibble is that he cites this report concerning England and Wales as referring to “the UK.” The UK is not just England and Wales but Scotland and Northern Ireland as well. Sargon has been a bit sloppy but it doesn’t detract too much from his point. However, as with the page numbering error above it does indicate that Sargon is rushing his research. This will always be a concern for someone like Sargon who puts out an enormous amount of content almost on a daily basis.

The next link is simply to illustrate the feminist meme of “you’re more likely to be raped by someone you know” and is to Cosmopolitan. No issues here.

In the next source Sargon makes a huge error.

Sargon claims that 63% of rapes in Sweden are committed by a total stranger. This is absolutely incorrect. The figures that he is looking at and has cited are those for all sexual offenses. This includes all lessor offenses such as indecent exposure, unwanted sexual comments, and so on. It is hardly surprising that people are going to report being flashed at or cat-called by a complete stranger than by their husband or boyfriend. Similarly, if someone is patted on the backside by their partner whilst travelling on the train they are hardly likely to report this incident as a sexual offense. But if a stranger touches them, or they believe he has, then a report might be well be made. In fact, in Sweden it is more likely to than elsewhere because – as Sargon’s own source makes clear – since 2005 people are more willing to report sexual offenses.

What Sargon says next is outrageous:

First he says that it is a “particularly unsual situation” but we already know this. Everybody knows that Sweden is an unusual situation. Sargon wants to pretend that Sweden is not that unusual, that it does not have especially draconian rape laws and how they gather their statistics has little or no effect on the number of reported rapes. Everyone, including the sources he cites, claims otherwise. For good measure I’ll offer an academic article that also suggests otherwise. It’s from The European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research entitled Crime Statistics as Constructs: The Case of Swedish Rape Statistics in which the author, using Swedish rape statistics as a focus, describes the way in which different factors affect official crime statistics produced at the national level.

Sargon then says that “it is very difficult not to come to the conclusion that this is being caused by the high number of Muslim men […] committing violent rapes against [women].” But he has offered no evidence for this. He hasn’t provided any sources that show either a high number of men have committed rape or that the ones that did are Muslims. This is pure speculation Sargon’s part. The resources he has just cited are not focused on “violent rapes” and make no mention of the religion of those being reported.

Remember, our interest here is on:

The quality of Sargon’s sources

of Sargon’s sources Sargon’s interpretation of his sources

of his sources And, the use to which he puts his sources

Sargon sounds every bit as hysterical as the SJWs he usually criticises. Which is unsurprising since he, like them, is arguing for the existence of a “rape culture” (albeit for different ends). And speaking of SJWs let’s look at Sargon’s next source: GreenNet

GreenNet is a not-for-profit ethical collective […] geared to the needs of activist organisations and individuals working for social change […] GreenNet designs and hosts web sites for organisations whose work is consistent with our mission, which is to work with movements for peace, economic and social justice. Source: gn.apc.org

These environmentally friendly SJWs are Sargon’s source for “Sweden’s terrible conviction rates” for reported rapes. However, this source is just a second-hand account of the Amnesty report already cited by Sargon. As mentioned in my previous post, because Sargon publishes multiple links to the same sources via second and third-hand accounts he runs the risk of accusations that he’s attempting to inflate the number of sources he has actually used.

Sargon wants to suggest that the low conviction rate for rapes compared to the high number of reports has something to do with a Swedish reluctance to prosecute Muslims. He refuses to accept what is obvious to everyone else; if you:

Increase the number of acts that are considered sexual assaults

With the expressed intention of increasing the number of reports

Then you will end up with a lot of reports of cases that will be very difficult to convict

For example: a man bumps into a woman on a crowded train, his crotch makes contact with her backside. Was it deliberate? She thinks so and gets off at the next stop to report the assault. We can easily imagine a situation in which she is mistaken and just as easily imagine one where she is correct. This will be a very difficult case to take to court.

A women buys her boyfriend a book on the Karma Sutra for his birthday and suggests trying out some of the positions later that night. Hours later he gives the book a quick read and tries out a few of the ones he can remember. She didn’t give her expressed consent to having her legs or arms held down but says nothing because she knows he’s trying his best. A few days later, she’s not so sure. She wonders if perhaps he was deliberately getting the positions wrong so he could have sex with her more roughly than she’d like. A week later they break up; and now she comes to think about it she’s definitely sure he pinned her arms down on purpose. She files a rape report and awaits her day in court. This will be a very difficult case to take to court.

A women overhears her husband talking to his friend about a movie he once saw in which a guy is woken up by his wife with oral sex. One day, she decides to give him a treat. Unfortunately, when he awakes he’s absolutely horrified and rushes off to file a rape report. This will be a very difficult case to take to court.

Below is an account from Cosmopolitan magazine in which a women wakes her boyfriend D. up with oral sex. If a man in Sweden, under the exact same circumstances and for the same reasons as those stated in the Cosmo piece, carefully pulled back the bed sheets and touched his girlfriend’s genitals while she was asleep he would be guilty of rape following the letter of the law. If his girlfriend reported him would we be greatly surprised if the case never made it to court? And if she didn’t report him would we be shocked at the unreporting of rape? Under the letter of the law in Sweden, a women can be raped – say if her husband wakes her up with oral sex – and enjoy it. Whatever she feels about her husband’s decision to wake her up in this way, pleased or pissed off, in Sweden it’s rape. Sargon does not think there is anything particularly unsual about the law in Sweden. The point is, the law in Sweden is designed to encourage rape reports not convictions. It doesn’t matter if most of the reports will never end up in court.

Sargon is trying to suggest that the “low conviction rates” for rapes is due to a politically correct reluctance to prosecute immigrants but in his own sources, in the cases of assault rape, the Swedes did exactly that. We’ve just been looking at cases in Olso and Stavenger in which the great majority of those convicted were non-Native. Rapes are difficult to prosecute when it comes down to one person’s word against another but in the case of stranger rape – especially if violence is involved – it is easier to get a conviction. Feminists who claim there is a rape culture deplore this fact because they believe that a women’s word is insufficient is proof of the existence of rape culture.

We don’t know this, we know that most rapes in Sweden are committed by people known to their victims. Sargon thinks he knows this because he has misread his sources and become confused. But Sargon has another problem. He wants to suggest that Swedes are reluctant to prosecute non-native rapists when in fact the opposite is true. When he talks of the “terrible conviction rate” what is actually referring to is the number of rape reports that end up with someone prosecuted, once the case is in court Sweden has the highest proportion of conviction rates. This statistic comes from an EU study with eleven European countries taking part. Professor Liz Kelly, who led the study talks about the conviction rates in a interview with Dagens Nyheter. This is a large circulation compact broadsheet daily newspaper in Sweden that self-identifies as liberal in the same sense of the word Sargon identifies with.

As we come to a close, I reiterate that the intention of these two posts is not to challenge any ideas about Muslim attitudes to women, or Islamification, or anything of the sort. My only interest is in Sargon’s use and misuse of sources to make claims about a rape culture in Sweden.

Sargon has attempted to show that Sweden does not have a excessively draconian attitude to rape. He has failed to do so. All his sources reveal the opposite Sargon has provided sources that do not match the claims he is attempted to support Sargon has misread and/or misinterpreted of his sources Sargon has contradicted himself as well as his sources Sargon has cited other people’s speculation as evidence Sargon has relied too heavily on 2nd and 3rd hand sources Sargon has used multiple sources that simply repeat while adding nothing information already cited by him from the original document Sargon has relied heavily on radical feminist, SJW and far-right sources while ignoring sources from his own liberal (in the European sense) postion. This is because to make his case for a rape culture he must stray away from his intellectual home ground.

Let’s look at the final sources.

The first source, Sweden enjoys on the highest levels of gender equality, is from the official site of Sweden and it’s a good source. The second link about Swedish Islamic preachers, is to the Gladstone Institute, a rightwing pro-Israel think tank founded by it’s current president Nina Rosenwald. Rosenwald and her institute have been accused of Islamphobia and bias against Muslims; she is an staunchly zionist and is a recipient of the Louis Brandeis award given by the Zionist Organisation of America.

The article Sargon links to is written by Ingrid Calqvist, the editior-in-chief of the Swedish anti-Islamic website Dispatch International and author of several books in colaboration with Swedish medium Benny Rosenqvist about communicating with angels and the “other side.” Dispatch International is unfraid to enter territory usually occupied by the extreme right, for instance publishing an opinon piece on multiculturalism by Paul Weston of the British Freedom Party, a far-right “cultural nationalist” organisation. Calquvist’s article, linked to by Sargon, is basically a list of news stories about Muslims published by papers from the extreme right to the centre liberal. This source tells us nothing about Sargon’s argument, no-one doubts that there are extreme Islamics and that some of them have been pandered to by Western governments. Of the around 30 stories included in Calqvist’s list only 5 were related to rape or violence against women. This source does not support Sargon’s argument.

Sargon’s final source is from the BBC. His point is that in areas that don’t have many Muslims it may be tempting to think warnings about radical Islam are overblown.

The source that Sargon links to is a report on a report into the Rotherham child abuse scandal. The source does not actually show that the BBC specifically omits reference to the religion of the known perpetrators however it does show that the Rotherham Council staff that should have been protecting the children did so.

However, it is quickly apparent that the BBC makes no reference to Muslims or Islam on the page Sargon links to. A quick look at the related stories section reveals other pages on the website that also fail to mention religion (although Pakistani heritage is mentioned). Sargon’s point is not about people putting their heads in the sand when it comes to indentifying groups with abhorent attitudes toward rape and abuse of women but those who particularly who refuse to point the figure at Muslims.

To find out who is being convicted of sex offenses in the UK, Sargon can check the Law Pages website that will reveal the names, offenses and sentences of those who have stood trial. The religion is not mentioned but their names provide a clue.

Checking Sargon’s sources: CONCLUSION

Sargon’s two videos about what he sees as a genuine “rape culture” in Sweden is a move away from his usual offerings. It is to his credit that he posts his sources for all to see. Checking these sources we can see why he appears to have drifted into a new area: almost all of his sources come either from the extreme left or right. However, there is no need to start scaremongering about a rape culture when there clearly is not one. I’m not denying that some groups of people do have a culture of shared attitudes, customs and beliefs that result in them trivialising or normalising rape but there is no sign that there is any danger of European countries as whole adopting a “rape culture”. Sargon doesn’t think there is one in Britain, the US or Canada despite SJW arguments to the contrary but has changed his tune when it comes to Sweden. But none of his sources show that there is. More damning, is that many of his sources are misinterpreted because he has failed to look closely enough. It is, unfortunately, a case of sloppy work.