A Malmö District Court convicted Peter Mangs, 40, of two counts of murder and four attempted murders, according to the Guardian. The man, who is a Swede of Finnish descent, killed his first victim in 2003 and terrorized Malmö during 2009-10. All of his victims were immigrants.
Mangs will undergo psychiatric evaluation before his sentencing in early September.
Writes the New York Times in May: “And although the scale of the accusations are nothing like the charges against Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian on trial in Oslo for the systematic killings of 77 people last year in a crusade against multiculturalism, the parallels have not been lost on residents here in Malmö, Sweden’s third-largest city and one of its most diverse.”
Prosecutor Solveig Wollstad was quoted as saying on Iltalehti that Mangs destroyed many people’s lives.
“He carried out his crimes in a cold-hearted manner without feelings [for the victims],” he said. “His aim was to shoot immigrants.”
Category: Enrique
I found it strange that you added “who is a Swede of Finnish descent” even it wasn’t mentioned in the news. What purpose does this serve? If I remember right, you have mentioned that Finnish news shouldn’t highlight the criminals origins either, but you still decide to do the same thing.
Joonas
Do you think that Ricky should have censored that item of information? Wouldn’t this then create the risk that the reader might easily imagine that the killer was a Swede of Swedish descent? Isn’t the purpose simply to tell the truth and not encourage such mistaken impressions?
Exactly so JusticeDemon,
That is why you must agree that it makes sense to report the ethnic origin of the criminal in Finland as else we might imagine the criminal is finnish or finnish descent right?
Yossie
Exactly so what?
I was asking genuine questions. It’s telling that you consider these questions to be a statement of position on a very sensitive and complex question.
In the context of respecting human dignity (i.e. the very value that the convicted racist PS criminal hahaa-lol specifically denies), the JSN ethical guidelines for journalists (section 26) read as follows on this point:
So now I put it to you that you must agree that it makes sense to report the sexual orientation or political views of the criminal in Finland as else we might imagine the criminal is straight or supports Kokoomus, right?
Does “assumed membership of the majority” always justify an otherwise irrelevant reference to non-membership of that majority? If so, then the JSN guideline has no practical value and we accept headlines such as PS voter slays wife and children or PS voter convicted of armed robbery.
PS supporters are a minority in Finland. Should we mention their political views whenever we report their offences, so that nobody mistakenly assumes that the offence was committed by a person with normal political intelligence and moral sensibilities?
In the case of Peter Mangs, we have a person of immigrant origin targeting victims of immigrant origin. Whether this suffices to establish independent relevance for mentioning his immigrant origin is an interesting question. Whether it suffices to establish independent relevance for mentioning his specifically Finnish origin is another interesting question. En Finne igen.
How is this censoring, if the information wasn’t mentioned in the Guardian news? Sure, you can mention that the killer was a Sweden of Finnish descent. But if you do this, then you should also approve mentioning the origins of the immigrant criminals and criminal Finns with multicultural backgrounds. You can have either both or neither of them. For my understanding MT is/was against mentioning the origins of the criminals, but maybe he has changed his mind.
The reason why I mentioned Peter Mangs ethnic background is because we live in Finland. Certainly this would have more relevance to us than to a reader in Ghana.
Ok, fair enough.