Center officials say authorities more concerned about minimizing hate crime statistics than reassuring a shaken Community targeted the night after Yom Kippur

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish Human rights NGO, is extending its Travel Advisory for the Swedish city of Malmö after police spokesman Anders Lindell told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that there is “no indication” that an attack on the local Jewish community center during the High Holy Days was a hate crime.

“Malmö authorities once again reveal themselves as willfully clueless when it comes to protecting the Jewish community,” charged Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Wiesenthal Center and Dr. Shimon Samuels, the Center’s Director of International Relations, (pictured here at an earlier meeting with Swedish Justice Minister Beatrice Ask).  “They are more concerned about minimizing hate crime statistics than reassuring a community whose main facility was attacked the night after Yom Kippur,” Cooper and Samuels added.

The Wiesenthal Center imposed a Travel Advisory for Malmö in 2010 after authorities serially refused to provide proper protection for the community’s rabbi. “Tragically, little if anything has changed and our Travel Advisory on Malmö is being extended for another six months,” Center officials concluded.

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).