Stockholm---Swedish police were investigating an arson attack on a Roma cultural centre as a government report appeared Friday saying the nordic country does not sufficiently protect the centuries-old minority.
"Two bottles containing liquid were thrown through the windows," police in the southern town of Malmoe said in a statement. "There was a small fire but it was put out by a person who was in the building."
The man who doused the flames alerted police shortly after midnight.
The centre was closed at the time and no one was injured in the fire, which came just a month after a series of suspected arson attacks on mosques across the country.
No eyewitnesses have come forward.
"All these incidents are serious... they can be classed as hate crimes or something similar," police spokesman Peter Martin told public broadcaster Sveriges Radio.
The arson attack happened just ahead of the release Friday of a government-commissioned report on anti-Roma racism which criticised Sweden for not doing enough to protect its Roma minority from discrimination and racism.
"Antiziganism in Sweden is widespread and deeply rooted in society," said Thomas Hammerberg, who led the inquiry behind the report.
"It's particularly serious that Roma do not consider that they have anywhere to turn when their rights are violated."
In September 2013 the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter revealed that police in the southern county of Skaane had compiled a register of more than 4,000 Swedish Roma -- including 1,000 children -- the majority of whom were not suspected of any crime.
Roma have lived in the country for more than 500 years and the group has official minority status alongside Jews, indigenous Sami and two other linguistic groups.
Sweden has the largest Roma minority in the Nordic countries -- an estimated 50,000 -- and the Swedish language has borrowed several Roma words, including "tjej" which means girl.
Last month the United Nations Human Rights Council criticised Sweden for growing numbers of reports of hate crimes against ethnic minorities -- including Muslims, Jews and Roma -- and pointed to the rise of anti-immigration political parties.
AFP
