Sweden: Investigation launched into mass sexual assaults amid police cover-up allegations

In the wake of the uproar over sex assaults New Year's Eve in the German town of Cologne by suspected immigrants, Swedish police have now launched a probe into similar attacks at a Stockholm music festival.

The internal investigation was ordered after accusations that officials covered up details about a group of men who reportedly molested young women at the "We Are Sthim" festival last August.

Police ejected some 200 people from the site but did not reveal information about the assaults, with most of the attacks believed to have been committed by young immigrant males, the BBC reported.

Stockholm police spokesperson Varg Gyllander admitted officials "should have communicated" details about the alleged sexual assaults.

He told Radio Sweden: "I actually do not know why it did not happen. Police have, as I understand the information I have been given, done a pretty big job there. A number of people have been removed due to harassment of women."

He said he suspected officials were reluctant to discuss the situation because the immigrant and refugee issue is so sensitive. "I think that all of us are very careful how we express ourselves, said Gyllander.

Festival organizers said sexual harassment has often been a problem but, beginning in 2014, attacks on women appeared to be coordinated by groups of boys and young men.

Stefan Lofven, Sweden's centre-left prime minister, called the incident "a double betrayal" for the women assaulted. "We shall not close our eyes and look away. We need to deal with such a serious problem," he told a local newspaper.

Sweden was the first country to offer permanent residence to Syrian refugees. Many attackers in the assaults on women in Cologne New Year's Eve were reportedly immigrants or asylum-seekers.

Experts say that the problem may not be so much with immigrants, but with men, including many young men, who according to United Nations statistics, make up the majority of those involved.

"Crimes such as rape and sexual harassment become more common in highly masculinised societies, and women's ability to move about freely and without fear within society is curtailed," Valerie Hudson, a professor at A&M University in Texas who studies sex ratios' impacts on societies, told the Australian. "In addition, demand for prostitution soars. Places where the sex ratio is most imbalanced have higher violent crime and property crime rates."

To help counteract bad publicity for their community, several immigrant men handed out roses this week to women at the Cologne train station where the New Year's Eve attacks occurred.