Mohammad Rezai, 20, says fellow conscripts at Sweden’s Skaraborg Regiment P4 subjected him to repeated racist abuse, ostracism and ultimately death threats during his military service, Borås Tidning reports. Rezai, who has lived in Herrljunga since arriving aged five, says racial slurs were used as nicknames even over military radio. One night in May, drunken platoon mates allegedly questioned his right to wear the Swedish flag and told him he did not deserve to live.
““There are 12 or 13 people sitting around the table in the barracks room, and I ask whether anyone knows what’s for lunch and at what time. Nobody answers. Then someone else comes along and asks exactly the same question, and everyone starts talking and answering. That’s when I understood: they wanted nothing to do with me.” (…) After that first incident, his platoon mates begin talking about Mohammad while he is sitting in the room.
“They say things like, ‘It’s good that we’ve got a blackhead doing military service here. If there’s a war, we’ll send them out and spare the fine people.’ That really made me wonder what kind of people I’d ended up with.”
Mohammad Rezai is the only person in the company with a non-Swedish background.”
The 20-year-old was repeatedly called racist nicknames:
“While everyone else gets nicknames that might say something about their personality, Mohammad is called “the blackhead” or “the nigger.” The names are even used over the radio when they communicate. That is when the officers begin to react.
“They get a dressing-down: you can’t say things like that. And extra physical training,” Mohammad says.
According to Mohammad, the whole group is punished, including him. He is also blamed for the group being punished, because his fellow conscripts say he is the reason.”
The most worrying is the fact that the leadership intervention only worsened his fate and subjected him to illegal group punishment for the harassment he received. Later during service, the abuse intensified.
““They say I’m worth less than they are and that I shouldn’t be there. That I’m the wrong race, and why am I wearing the Swedish flag? Eventually, they say I don’t deserve to live.” That night, Mohammad Rezai contacts the military police (…) Friends from Herrljunga whom Mohammad went to school with chat to him as usual on the train to and from Skövde. But once they are at the regiment, Mohammad seems not to exist. (…) After that, things change for the worse. When Mohammad enters a room, everyone leaves. He becomes a pariah. “It became a huge talking point at the regiment, but not a single person came up to me. When I went to eat, everyone in the dining hall looked at me, several hundred people. But I had to sit by myself in a corner.””
What a unifying institution Nordic conscription is!
Read the entire piece in Borås Tidning
