The Swedish police are under scrutiny after failing to bring sexual assault reports at a music festival into light. 

Dagens Nyheter, a Swedish newspaper reported that, in the August of 2015, a group of migrant youths sexually assaulted several girls at a music festival with attendees between the ages of 12-17. However, these reports didn’t come to media attention by the police. The newspaper accused the Swedish authorities of failing to warn the public before the festival that similar attacks had occurred in 2014.

It is speculated that this unwarranted discretion was because the police were trying to avoid an anti-immigrant backlash. Here’s what Varg Gyllander, a Stockholm police spokesperson says about the matter,

“We should certainly have written and told people about this, no doubt. Why it did not happen, I do not know.”

Gyllander denied the allegations of a cover-up, and said that an investigation was underway. Stay tuned to Festival Sherpa for more news.