http://www.thelocal.se/50086/20130905/
So, anyone that thinks USA shold be able to dictate who can get in at a school/programme/firm in another country than their own? This seems to be slightly retarded. Ok, more than slightly - it's very retarded.A Swedish teenager has been denied a place on a flight engineer course at a Swedish high school due to having been born in Iraq, a decision described as "unacceptable" by a legal expert at the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (Skolinspektionen).
"People like me are not allowed in there and I am very disappointed because I was first admitted and was then rejected," Hussein Radhi told Sveriges Television (SVT).
16-year-old Radhi, who moved to Sweden as a 3-year-old and has been a citizen for 13 years, was initially accepted to the course at the Nils Ericsson high school in Trollhättan.
But when his place of birth was brought to the attention of the school's education partner GKN Aerospace, he was told that he was no longer welcome.
The school has responded with regret over the news but stated that they are obliged to follow the regulations of the firm, where pupils spend a large part of their placement.
"Not everyone gets the placement that they desire, even on other programmes. But it shouldn't be based on ethnicity," Karl-Olof Pettersson at Nils Ericsson high school told SVT.
Pettersson conceded however that Hussein's place of birth had in fact been the obstacle in this case and explained that trade regulations were to blame.
"It is almost a global political issue," he said.
Anna Tamelin, a lawyer at the Swedish Schools Inspectorate, has called the decision into question.
"I find it extremely doubtful, virtually impossible, (to believe) that it is permitted to have a general high school programme where US export regulations dictate the terms of who gets in or not," she said to the local TTELA daily.
GKN Aerospace is a supplier to the global aviation industry with business equally focused on military and civil markets, whose operations in Sweden formally belonged to Volvo Aero. The Local's attempts to reach the firm for comment on Thursday have been unsuccessful.
Update in the case:
Update in the case:
http://www.thelocal.se/20140528/us-r...edish-watchdog
So, they established that it's against Swedish law to do that.A Swedish engine company risks a $75,000 fine for telling an Iraqi-born high school student he could not intern with them, because it put them at odds with US export rules.
The boy was enrolled in an industrial technology programme at a high school in Trollhättan, western Sweden, which incorporates internships as a major component of the pupils' education. The 16-year-old was all set to intern at a company that manufactures parts of airplane engines, but just before the start of the autumn term last year, he was told he could not start his internship.
The company said US export rules meant they could not take on the boy, who was born in Iraq.
On Wednesday, Sweden's Discrimination Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen - DO) found that the boy had been discriminated against on the basis of ethnicity, and it will now take the case to court.
"As the company denied the boy an internship by making direct reference to his ethnic origin, rather than making an individual assessment, I find that he has been discriminated," case work Agneta Broberg said in statement.
"A company cannot refer to international rules for export control to break Swedish discrimination law," she added.
The ombudsman's office will take the company to a labour tribunal, where it will argue that it should pay damages to the tune of half a million Swedish kronor ($75,000).
Penalties for discrimination were made more severe in 2009, in order to act as a greater deterrent, the ombudsman's office notes on its website.