After nearly a decade of fear and violence, ‘Amin,’ a former restaurant owner in Stockholm, has left Sweden to return to his native Iraq. In an interview with the Swedish newspaper Daily News (DN.se), he talks about the hard time he went through when a criminal network forced him to pay money to avoid harassment.
Amin (not his real name) describes how the network in the suburb where his restaurant was located made constant threats and violent attacks against him.
”Imagine how it feels if you work ten hours a day. And then some disgusting person comes and threatens you and says nasty things to you.”
Amin fled to Sweden after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 with a dream of a safer life and initially managed to build a successful restaurant business. ‘The first ten years in Sweden were my best days,’ he says, but when a criminal gang started taking over the neighborhood, everything changed.
”Amin tries to get help from the police. At first, he is treated well. They seem to take him seriously. But at the same time, there have been several shootings in the neighborhood in a short time. A murder takes place just outside the restaurant,’ writes DN.
The threats against Amin and other restaurateurs in the area became more frequent, and several times, he was physically attacked. Typically, restaurateurs must pay between USD 1000 and 5000 a month to gang criminals. Those who refuse to pay get their shop windows smashed, and it costs at least USD 1000 to repair each time, says Amin.
Despite trying to get help from the police, he felt that society could not protect him. Amin explains that many restaurant owners end up paying the gangs to avoid having their businesses destroyed. For him, the situation became untenable, leading to the breakdown of his marriage and the closure of his restaurant.
”It’s been 10 years of my life. I have lost my children, I have lost my family.”
Now Amin is back in Iraq, where he has built a new restaurant business and feels safer, but he harbors a deep sadness at losing contact with his children and family.
”I moved to Sweden because it was a safe country. Now I’m moving from Sweden because it’s not safe anymore.”
The photo used by Daily News in its article is from the Stockholm suburb of Skarholmen, Stockholm.
Source: Restaurant owner leaves Sweden after gang violence: ‘Safer in Iraq’, Daily News (Dagens Nyheter, DN.se)