STOCKHOLM — Footage of security officers dragging a pregnant black woman off a Stockholm subway train and pinning her to a bench has caused an outcry in Sweden, raising questions about the treatment of minorities in a country often seen as a beacon of tolerance.
Two security guards have been suspended and police have begun an investigation into the encounter, officials said.
Footage showed the woman shouting in protest and a child crying as the episode unfolded. The video was widely shared on social media, with many Swedes complaining that a black woman had been unfairly targeted. Some expressed shock that the child had been left crying while the woman was being overpowered by the guards.
Many asked whether the guards, who appeared to be white, would have forcibly removed a pregnant white woman from the subway.
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Henrik Palmer, a media officer for the Stockholm public transport authority, said Sunday that the woman had been accused of traveling without a valid ticket and had grown angry when given a fine and asked to leave the train.
When she refused, he said, security officers took hold of her arm. “That is when the tumult started,” Palmer said, adding that her removal involved “the very disturbing consequence of her being pushed down on a bench.”
In the footage, she is shown having an argument with security guards, then being dragged off the train and held down.
A bystander can be heard saying: “Take it easy. She’s pregnant. Leave her alone.”
The woman was later taken by ambulance to Huddinge Hospital, where she spent the night, officials said.
Police said they were looking into charges of misconduct against the security guards, as well as charges of “violent resistance” by the woman against a public servant.
Sweden, once one of the most welcoming of nations for immigrants and long considered “a moral superpower,” as the political scientist Lars Tragardh put it, has experienced a rise in anti-immigration sentiment amid increasing globalization, immigration and anxiety about national and cultural identity.
The episode occurred days after a prominent TV investigative program reported on racial profiling in Sweden. TV4’s “Kalla Fakta” spoke with about 100 Swedes with foreign backgrounds who said they had been stopped, checked and treated by police in a disparaging and condescending way.
John Stauffer, chief legal counsel with the Stockholm-based Civil Rights Defenders, said by phone that ethnic profiling was widespread. The rights group published a report on the issue in 2017, showing that people were being stopped, questioned and controlled.
“We can see that people experience being profiled on a daily basis and in everyday situations, such as on the subway system, on the way to work and school, moving around in public places,” he said.
Interviews on Sunday with the woman — who insisted on being identified only by her first name, Jeanine, because she feared for her safety — and with others revealed that she is originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo and worked at a beauty salon.
She said that she had been on her way to the hospital with her 5-year-old daughter on Thursday evening because she was having contractions. She said she had her travel card with her at the time but could not find it. By the time she pulled it from her pocket, she said, the ticket controller had already issued a fine.
“I took the fine and threw it on the ground,” she said. “I was angry at myself for losing the card.” That’s when the ticket controller said she had to leave the train.
“I said, ‘Why do I have to get out?’” she said. “I wanted to go to the hospital because I was in pain.”
When the train car stopped at Hotorget Station, she said, security guards arrived and pulled her from the car. When they took hold of her, she said, she started to panic.
“They took me by the arm very hard,” she said. “They forced me out. They put me on the bench, with my stomach down. One of them put their knee on my back and I lost my breath.
“I was afraid that my baby was going to die in my belly.”
One witness, Francisca Infante, 42, a human resources manager, said that she had been sitting nearby when the argument began.
“She raised her voice and she moved her arms — and that is all that was needed for them to take a police grip on her,” Infante said by phone. She said that the guards “pressed her and her stomach against the edge of the bench and pushed with all their weight.”
“I don’t know why she reacted like that,” Infante said. “But if they had more than two weeks’ training they would know that humans react in different ways.”
Asked whether she believed that she had been profiled, Jeanine said: “I don’t think a white woman would have to go through this. I was treated like an animal.”
Lovette Jallow, a blogger and social justice activist who lectures about racial profiling, collected testimony from witnesses and posted videos of the guards’ tactics on social media.
“They are not meant to remove you,” Jallow said. “They can do that with drunk people. They can do that with violent people. They do not know her background.”
She said that she had met with Jeanine at the hospital. “She is 36.5 weeks pregnant,” Jallow said. “She worked full time up until last week in a beauty salon.”
Jallow, who is Swedish and Gambian, said that she herself had received racist and sexist threats on Instagram and on her cellphone since publicizing the treatment of the mother.
“We are living in a dangerous country right now,” she said.
Jeanine’s baby is due on Feb. 20, and she said that she still had bruises on her back, thighs and arms. She is scheduled to return to the doctor’s office on Monday.
She said she would take a taxi.