Swedish government pushes forward with bid to revoke gang criminals' citizenship
Sweden's conservative-led government has appointed a new inquiry to look into how dual citizens involved in gang crime could have their Swedish citizenship revoked.
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The inquiry follows a committee which in January recommended changing the constitution to make it possible to revoke Swedish citizenship for dual citizens who commit crimes which threaten Sweden's security – but takes the committee's conclusions one step further.
The committee, made up of members of all eight parties, proposed that the absolute right Swedish citizens have to retain their citizenship should be limited to allow the citizenship of dual citizens to be revoked in three situations:
If they are found guilty of crimes which pose a serious threat to Sweden's security, such as espionage, terrorism, sabotage, treason, or rebellion
If they are found guilty of crimes covered by the International Criminal Court, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression
If they received their citizenship on false grounds, either through supplying false documents or information or by bribing or threatening government officials
The committee however stopped short of recommending stripping citizenship from people found guilty of 'system-threatening crimes' within the framework of gang crime.
But the three parties in government – the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals – and their far-right Sweden Democrat allies, have instructed the new inquiry to also look into measures for revoking dual citizens' Swedish nationality over such crimes.
'We're choosing to proceed with this work and are hoping for broader support in parliament,' Migration Minister Johan Forssell told a press conference on May 26th.
Anders Ygeman, migration spokesperson for the centre-left Social Democrats, told The Local in January that his party had refused to support the government parties' approach at the time because it was framed so loosely that it "could be used for situations which were impossible to predict beforehand".
"If the government wants to widen the scope, they need to be much more precise and you have to be able to predict the consequences," he said.
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However, Forssell argued at the press conference that widening the scope was necessary to crack down on gang criminals taking advantage of a Swedish passport to travel and avoid getting deported while carrying out crimes that seriously threaten the vital interests of the state.
He cited police statistics estimating that 1,100 people who are currently active members of criminal networks have dual citizenship.
The new inquiry will also look into the general practicalities of how citizenships could be revoked. It is set to present its results by March 20th 2026.
Changing one of Sweden's constitutional laws requires the bill to be passed by the Swedish parliament twice, once either side of a general election.
As the 2026 election will be held in September and a new government is unlikely to be in place until October or November, in practice this means that any change to the constitution would not come into force until 2027 at the earliest.
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