[OpIndia - ht AOSHQ sidebar] Professor Kristina Sundquist, Lund University, Sweden and two of her colleagues are facing prosecution by the Board of Appeal for ethical review, a body that reports to the Swedish Ministry of Education. The reason behind the investigation initiated by the body is the research paper that was submitted by Sundquist that shows most rapes that happened in Sweden were committed by immigrants.The body would not investigate whether Sundquist and the co-author of the paper, Professor Ardavan Khoshnood, were given "ethical license" to handle "sensitive data" on the ethnicity of the criminals accused of rape in the country. Interestingly, the aim of the study was not to target any group or community but to find out common denominators like health issues, social and employment status among perpetrators. The results were, according to Khoshnood, surprising for the team as well.
Reports suggest that the ethical authority is aiming to issue some sort of punishment to the authors of the paper. In a statement, the body said, "I don’t see anywhere that ethical permission is sought to test the hypothesis if immigrants are overrepresented in statistics on convicted rapists. The scientists were also criticized for insufficient evaluation as they failed to indicate how their research should "reduce exclusion and improve integration."