Sweden: Town limits 'oriental' immigrant weddings
A local politician from Landskrona in southern Sweden has decreed that only one “immigrant wedding” can be held at the town’s local community centre every month.
“We don’t want to have too many,” Lars Svensson, the centre's manager and Social Democratic member of the Landskrona local council, told the local Helsingborgs Dagblad (HD) newspaper, Svensson then went on to explain what he meant by the term “immigrant wedding”.
“It’s those who live in the city. There are quite a lot of Kurds and Palestinians who get married. There's something about having an oriental background; there can be between 400 and 500 guests,” Svensson explained, adding that "European immigrant groups" aren't included in the term.
According to Svensson, the policy comes following repeated complaints about the noise and untidiness associated with “immigrant weddings” held at Landskrona’s Folkets Hus, translating literally into English as “The People's House”.
But in Landskrona, Svensson’s policies have left members of some immigrant groups shut out of using the community centre.
Moreover, it seems that weddings thrown by some European immigrant groups are in fact included in Svensson's category of "immigrant weddings".
Local resident Habib Ramadani, originally from Kosovo, has lived in Landskrona for ten years and had hoped to hold a wedding reception for his son in the town’s community centre last year.
But Svensson rejected Ramadani’s request, citing the proud father’s immigrant background.
“If he had said, ‘no, it’s booked’, that would have been the end of it. But then he asked what country I was from,” Ramadani told the newspaper.
Ramadani told Svensson he was from Kosovo, still hoping to be able to rent out the community centre’s great hall.
“He said, ‘Not for you, you all throw cake on the floor instead of in your mouths,’” Ramadani explained.
“But the great hall was free that weekend. Others who worked there told us so.”
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Source: The Local (English)
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