Judge rules in favor of exclusive land rights for indigenous group in northern Sweden

• A district court ruled that the Sami, an ethnic group indigenous to northern Scandanavia and northwest Russia, should have exclusive rights to control hunting and fishing in the Arctic village of Girjas.
• The legal battle began in the early 1990s, when the Swedish government stripped land rights to the village from the Sami, Sweden’s only officially recognized indigenous group who trace their lineage in the region back thousands of years.
• The victory comes as the Church of Sweden has released a two-volume report detailing the history of its treatment of the Sami, including the segregated schools it ran for from the 1910s to the 1960s.

Read more:
“Sweden’s indigenous Sami people win rights battle against state” (The Guardian)
“Sami minority wins symbolic court victory over Sweden” (The Local)
“Swedish church admits it ran ‘racist’ Sami schools” (The Local)

(Image Credit: Alamy/The Guardian)