Danish politics just became a whole lot more colorful

Following the recently concluded local elections, our capital Copenhagen was hit by a political scandal when Wallait Khan, elected for the rightwing Liberals, defected to support a leftwing government of the city in return for the spot as 2nd deputy mayor along with a couple other posts.

It goes WAY beyond mere political backstabbery, though. Other than a series of economic irregularities (running up debts in other people´s names, for example), Khan has a quite....colourful political carreer behind him. Now it has emerged, that he supports the two radical islamist organisations Minhaj ul-Quran and Hizb ut-Tahrir. And that is not all (from Weekendavisen, my translation):

In the November-issue 2005 of the urdu-language monthly Sahil, that is distributed in Copenhagen, it says in reference to Wallait Khans own campaign materials: "There has been this whole campaign against Minhaj ul-Quran and Hizb ut-Tahrir, Wallait Khan has always supported these organisations and schools and institutions all that he could."

According to information in the hands of Weekendavisen, Wallait Khan has had an identical-sounding version of his political program printed in a special issue of the magazine Taswer-i-Watan, that is distributed in Pakistan, but with the addition of the comment about the two extremist organisations: "I will continue to support them."

Wallait Khan himself doesnt answer telephone calls these days, but has earlier denied, that he should be sympathizing with Minhaj ul-Quran. A movement, that on its American home page lists as its goal: "Islamic world domination, elimination of the influence of atheist ideologies and islamic domination both politically, culturally, academically, socially, spiritually and economically."

Babar Baig, the deputy chairman of the organisation in Denmark, has professed, that the Danish section of the organisation "is only a welfare-organisation for peace and harmony", though. Wallait Khan himself in 2001 said to several newspapers, that the organisation was "fundamentalist,", and that he no longer would be a member of it.

Khan was elected to the city council (of Copenhagen - Henrik) this month, but chose a short time later to become an independent and support the deal between the Social Democrats, Radicals, Socialist People´s Party and Unity List (Communists - Henrik) to form the city government. That way, the scales tipped in the new City Council, so the right wing stands to lose one of the two mayoral posts (Copenhagen has a Head Mayor and mayoral posts for different matters - Henrik), that the right wing was otherwise entitled to. The mayoral post will then go to the Unity List. ..

Immediately after the election two weeks ago, it emerged, that Khan in parallel with his political carreer in city hall in Copenhagen also has tried to run in the mayoral election in his hometown in Pakistan. After a complaint from a member of Liberal Youth, the election authorities are currently investigating whether Khan has even been electable in Copenhagen. This, after the daily Politiken wrote, that the local politician has been away from Denmark in more than six months during the last three years. If that is the case, the election of Wallait Khan is declared void, and his deputy steps in in his place. That is a Liberal, and thus the scales would tip back, so one mayoral post goes back to the rightwingers. ..

A Pakistani journalist in Copenhagen, who out of fear of Wallait Khan refuses to be named, says to Weekendavisen:

"The Pakistani society in Copenhagen is very surprised, that the left wing and the Radicals will pay such a high price for a mayoral post. Khan has never respected the Danish democratic values. How can they be so blind, that they give him such a responsibility, that he for example can end up receiving the Queen in city hall." ..

"Wallait Khan, who came here as a 16-year-old - and has worked hard ever since - is simply a role model for the kind of development we want in the Liberals."

The Liberal´s mayor in Copenhagen municipality, Søren Pind, was a happy man, when he on a press conference in city hall on April 6th, 2000, could present a switch of parties of the more remarkable kind: member of the city council Wallait Khan switched from the Socialist People´s Party (SPP) to the Liberals

The SPP has an internal party tax, that all its elected candidates have to pay off the salaries they get from the posts they are elected to. Khan had built up a dept to his party of several tens of thousands of crowns in tax arrears, that would have prevented him from becoming a candidate for the SPP again.

Wallait Khans political carreer started in the Immigrant List, for which he was elected to the city council, and he went from there to the SPP, where he also was elected, then to the Liberals, where he also was elected, and these days he is thinking about again becoming a member of the SPP..

It was especially his friendship with the then 62-year-old Pakistani Sattar Mohd Naz - who in 1997 was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison for attempted murder at the special terrorist court in Jhelum in Pakistan - that made some wonder. Sattar Mohd Naz according to Weekendavisens information has also helped Wallait Khan with his election campaign this year..

The friendship is remarkable by the fact that Naz, according to Ekstra Bladet, during a vacation in Pakistan has tried to assassinate Wallait Khan in his home in the Punjab. Khan wasnt at home, and thus escaped alive. The two hitmen Naz had hired were arrested, and revealed Naz as the mastermind. But before the assassination attempt, the two actually had a long friendship stretching back many years.

It began with the elections for the chairmanship in The Pakistani Organisation in the early eighties, where the Pakistani immigrants in Denmark could choose between two candidates: Ch. Sharif and Wallait Khan. Sattar Mohd Naz enthusiastically supported Wallait Khans candidacy. But the resistance against Khan was so strong among some immigrants, that his opponents thought the only way to get rid of him was to kill him. They sought him out at his job in Roskilde, but Khan was on sick leave, so the group instead mangled two of his friends and killed a third.

The assault made Khans and Naz´ friendship closer. Until last year, when NAz´ son annoyed Khan by acting rudely in his office. When Khan told him to stop, the boy continued. That annoyed Khan so much, that he and some of his friends headed out to Naz´ home in Rødovre with baseballbats, to give Naz´ son something to think about. When the boy emerged from the home, he was beaten by Khan and his gang. Naz became angered by the attack, and began speaking badly about Khan in Pakistani immigrant circles. To shut him up, Khan ordered a gang to take care of the entire Naz family. The gang caught the Naz family and supporters on Vesterbro (neighbourhood in Copenhagen), and it developed into a regular riot in Isted Street and Viktoria Street. After that, things calmed down, but according to Wallait Khan one of Naz´ sons later tried to run him over in a car outside the mosque of Minhaj ul-Quran in Valby.

According to the paper Ekstra Bladet the whole thing ended with a Pakistani restaurant owner from Copenhagen arbitrating between the two former friends, and after that the two were again as close as ever.

Norway: more domestic violence among immigrants

From Dagsavisen.no (my translation):

"Sure, he beats me. But he doesnt hit me every day."

That is how one of the residents at a battered women´s refuge in the East Country excuses her husband. He is not an "abuser". He only beats here off and on.

- In many cultures, violence against women is unfortunately more the norm and more accepted. It isnt seen as abuse, either. That is part of the explanation for women with immigrant backgrounds being overrepresented in Norwegian batered women´s refuges, says Vigdis Bratz, leader of the Norwegian Battered Womens Organisation to Dagsavisen.

Work as slaves.

The police see it, too: in around 70 percent of the domestic violence cases in Oslo police district, the perpetrator or victim, or both, have another ethnic background than Norwegian. ..

- Based on the cases we know of, it seems as if violence is more pronounced in families with an alien cultural background, says family violence coordinator in Oslo police district, Stein-Erik Olsen, to Dagsavisen.

In many criminal cases, foreign women have told about them being expected to work as slaves for her husband and his family. If they come to Norway through family-reunification with a husband with immigrant background who is born here, the woman lacks a network of her own. They have neither family nor friends to turn to for help.

- We see many cases of women having married themselves here, that then get into big trouble. If they refuse to fit in they dont just get their husband against them, but his entire family, says Olsen.

At Tone Skjelbostad´s, leader of the battered womens refuge in Oslo, more than 80 percent of the women that have fled violence are immigrants. Almost all of them are married to men with foreign backgrounds, she explains. ..

As Dagsavisen has reported earlier, many of the foreign women at the battered womens refuges have been subjected to violence after relationships with ethnically Norwegian men. But also on a national level, the numbers from the refuges clearly show that immigrant women married to immigrant men are clearly over-represented compared to their numbers. In all, 48 percent of all women in the refuges had a foreign background in 2004. 68 percent of those women were married to foreign husbands.

Henrik

Fanatical pupils

From the paper B.T (my translation):

The boys seem brainwashed by extreme islamic positions, that they dont stop for a moment expressing in class. Several teachers, that B.T. has spoken to, are directly shocked and appalled over the tone coming from some of the very aggressive students.

Some of them have been to koran schools, and according to teachers that is also where they have their extreme positions from. ..

- Saddam Hussein and moslems, who cut the throats of American soldiers are heroes

- Pia Kjærsgaard (Danish People´s Party chairman) will get killed, if she becomes prime minister, are messages from the children, when substitute teacher Martin Leider Olsen teaches at the school.

- I was very schocked by that. And I tried taking the discussion about just how disgusting a guy Saddam Hussein actually was. But it just bounced off them as water from a goose. They are not willing to compromise or hear other people´s arguments. They have a one-sided idea about everything being the west´s fault, says Martin Leider Olsen. ..

- The Danish pupils were surprised, and they didnt say that much. It has something to do with the way they discuss. They yell and scream, and it is as if he that yells the highest is right.

They dont listen to arguments, but have a rock-solid faith in, that what they say is the truth, he says.

The radical views according to Martin Leider Olsen stem from arab satellite tv channels that the children watch at home, and not the least from the koranic schools. ..

Head teacher Gitte Kongstad has had the same sort of problems at Sønderbro Elementary. In a conversation between two moslem boys, she heard one say to the other:
- I will kill my classmates, if Allah says so. I will also kill my dad, if Allah thinks, I have to do it. When she asked where such views stem from, the boys said that they had learnt it in koranic schools. ..

- The children are only at school five-six hours a day, and the rest of the time they roam where there are only immigrants. Satellite dishes are running all the time on the arab stations.

That means they get very little input from Danes. They live in a parallel society, where they confirm each others in the role of victims, where Danes in all possible ways are horrible.

Henrik

Own prejudices block immigrants from getting jobs

An accusation you often meet from moslem circles is, that evil racists are keeping them from getting jobs. This especially came up in a recent row over unemployment benefits, that need a bit of explanation. People who receive those here are divided into 5 "match groups" according to how equipped they are to have and hold a job, with "match group 5" being the worst group and 1 the best. The Danish government recently suggested, that people in match group 4 had to show up 300 hours of work over a 4-year period to continue receiving unemployment benefits.

The usual suspects screamed bloody murder, and immediately seized upon several thousand immigrant couples as the prime victims to focus on to defeat the measure. Both members in the couples are in Match Group 4, and would of course be doomed, since racist employers didnt want to give them jobs, and the government wanted to cut off benefits for them because of that.

The two leftist strongholds of Denmark´s Radio and the newspaper Politiken recently got together to test those accusations with reality. The results are startling (source: BT, my translation):

The two media have sent five young 2nd-generation immigrants on a special mission on the Danish labor market. The youngsters were to get other immigrant youths jobs. They have sought out reality to remove hindrances - and their results thus far are quite remarkable.

Early yesterday, two of the job-agents declared unanimously, that the worst, most problematic hindrance to get immigrants to work are the prejudices of the immigrants themselves. Most of them think, its much harder to get a job than it is in reality. The two job agents brought in lots of jobs - the problem is actually making the unemployed youths seek them. The 29-year-old scarf-wearing Anissa Aharaz is deeply surprised herself. She thought, that the Danish companies would be more cautious at employing women, that insisted on wearing a scarf, or in other ways set herself apart through name, skin color or clothes. But she has discovered, that by far the most companies are enormously tolerant. The things that hinder, are the prejudices of the immigrants.

The 20-year-old Rola El-Dirawi, who has a Palestinian background, has a special experience with the group of her co-nationals and fellow women in Århus. Here, 80 percent of the women are outside the labor market. Rola El-Dirawi has found lots of jobs. But she hasnt been able to make even one of her co-nationals take an offer. They dont want to. Either because they personally prefer to stay at home - or because their husbands forbid them to take a job.

The young job agents agree, that the most important thing that can be done to change this unhappy situation, is to threaten to take away unemployment benefits from the Palestinian families. The government could hardly get any stronger backing for its plan.

Henrik

"Freedom of speech is important, but its more important what is holy to me"

Turkish islamist premier, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visited Denmark last week. He made a highly interesting remark during the visit in reaction to the drawings of the alleged prophet Mohammed in Jyllands-Posten (source: Politiken, my translation):

"Freedom of speech is important, but it is more important what is holy to me"

The article continues

In a speech, that almost solely dealt with building bridges between the West and the moslem world, he urged to show respect for one another ..

"Turks have, as a moslem people, always respected the symbols that are holy to people of another faith than ours. We have never attacked other people´s religious or cultural inheritance"

Ehr? For one example, take the Ayasofya mosque in Istanbul. Before the Turks forcibly converted it to a mosque, it had been one of the most beautyful churches of Eastern Orthodoxy for 9 centuries.

Even if we take his claim at face value, what does it help if you respect people´s religiour of cultural inheritance, when you kill the people themselves based on it? Fex the massacre of a million plus Christians 1915-23. A small reminder of what I am talking of, Tayyip:


Toleration as loong as it suits you.

Henrik

Foul play suspected in "ethnic women´s" disappearance

I dont care much about the phrase "ethnic women", given that women arent an ethnicity, but the phrase appeared in the original article I quote, and it gives me an opportunity to address this: the Danish establishment is bending over backwards to avoid calling them moslem immigrants. Over the last couple years, we have been through "New Danes", "Ethnic" people (to the extent where "Ethnic Danes" means everybody else but those of Danish ethnicity), "Two-languaged", people of "Immigrant background" and a host of other phrases. The one our politicians currently seem to like the most is the original one: "Refugees/Immigrants". It doesnt matter that they never think about the Americans, Norwegians and Swedish immigrants when talking about the group.

Anyway: From Denmark.dk:

Every year, young women with immigrant backgrounds disappear without a trace in Denmark. Authorities should investigate their fate, immigration consultants say

Police are currently investigating whether the disappearances of two young women with immigrant backgrounds can be explained as honour slayings, fearing that their relatives killed them to protect the family's honour.

The two girls, however, are not the only ones to disappear without a trace. Immigration experts say many immigrants and asylum seekers disappear every year from Denmark, but police only launch an investigation if they have concrete reason to suspect a crime.

Copenhagen integration consultant Manu Sareen said he came across at least three cases of girls disappearing every year, and that Danish authorities had no idea about their fate. Sareen said that although in most cases there was no reason to fear an honour slaying, authorities should check whether the girls had been sent out of the country against their will. ..

Bent Wigotski, Denmark's ambassador in Pakistan, said he was in contact with at least four girls with Danish citizenship every year, who were being kept in Pakistan against their will. He said that in most cases, the embassy did not receive word that the girls had gone missing.

'When we get into contact with the girls, they have been away from schools, towns, or institutions for months. And I'm often surprised that we don't receive word from their local authorities in Denmark,' Wigotski said.

He said that news of a missing girl usually came through concerned friends or a boyfriend.

The Danish embassy in Pakistan has been able to assist every Danish citizen in need. If girls are Pakistani citizens, however, helping them back to Denmark can prove a difficult task.

Awareness of honour slayings and other crimes against young immigrant women was raised in September, when an 18-year-old Pakistani girl named Ghazala Abbas was murdered in broad daylight by her older brother a day after she married a young Afghani man, whom her family did not approve of.

Many of the girl's relatives have been arrested for ordering, planning, and assisting in her slaying in order to protect the family's honour.

Henrik

Its only racism when the victim isnt white...

Not from Scandinavia, but I cant not blog it. From the BBC:

Christopher Yates, 30 (right - Henrik), was knocked to the ground and his head kicked like a football last November, the Old Bailey was told. ..

Sajid Zulfiqar, 25, Zahid Bashir, 23, and Imran Maqsood, 21, of Ilford, east London, will be sentenced on Thursday.

The court heard that after the attack Zulfiqar shouted, in Urdu: "We have killed the white man. That will teach an Englishman to interfere in Paki business." ..

Mr Yates's head was stamped on and he died from multiple injuries to his face, said Anthony Leonard QC, prosecuting.

The victim, from Barking, described as a quiet, harmless man, wandered into the university where he had been a student, after hearing music.

Mr Leonard said a teenage girl standing nearby heard the remarks in Urdu made by Zulfiqar. ..

After attacking Mr Yates, the group, all unemployed (and their mugshots all ont he left - Henrik), moved on to Ilford where they shouted racial abuse at a black resident who remonstrated after they damaged vehicles and set off car alarms.

An Asian member of staff was assaulted at a local curry house before Zulfiqar attacked another black man in a nearby street.

The prosecutors comment:

Mr Leonard said the reason for the attack was unclear, but the defendants had all been drinking all day.

You see, it isnt racism when whites are attacked. Useless nitwit

Henrik

Highschool friday prayers promoting islamic radicalism

The following is from Berlingske Tidende (my translation):

They had received permission to pray in the basement. A quiet prayer in the midday break. But at Vestre Borgerdyd Highschool the permission for conducting friday prayers for a group of moslem students - among them a student now charged with terrorism - has run amuck. The prayer has just been stopped after a sermon conducted by imam Abu Labans 17-year-old son.

On the basement-rooms floor tiles between the lockers the girls lie at the back on their blankets. The boys are in front. The 30-40 faces are turned towards Mekka and towards a young man, who stands at the end of the room, conducting the sermon. He speaks to them. Speaks about how you are a good moslem. About not to believe the Danish government and the teachers at the high school. About it being a good idea to show up at the annual meeting of the radical moslem movement Hizb ut-Tahrir to days later in the Nørrebro sports arena.

That is how it transpires in the midday break, according to Berlingske Tidendes sources, on Vestre Borgerdyd hisghschool friday last week. The student who lead the prayer, is 17 years old and son of the influential imam of Copenhagen Ahmed Abu Laban. What started as a quiet prayer in the basement has, lead by Abu Labans son, over the last year evolved into a joint friday prayer spiced with radical views, that moderate moslems on the school feel insulted by.

"I think they are very extreme, they dont treat other moslems nice," as one of the girls from the school puts it.

But this day in the basement, a student is missing among the praying highschool students. We will call him EH. He used to take part in the prayer if he could find the time, but this friday something has come in the way. The simple explanation is, that he is in investigative custody for the second week running, charged with planning a terror attack. EH is one of seven young moslems, that Glostrup Police have charged for, together with four others in Bosnia, to plan for a terror attack somewhere in Europe that was "close by". An attack that maybe should have taken place in Denmark, but that according to yesterdays issue of the Bosnian paper Dnevni Avaz was to hit the US embassy in Sarajevo. ..

The story about EH, Abu Laban´s sons speeches and the friday prayers on Vestre Borgerdyd is apparently the story about a gesture towards the moslem students of the high school, that has run amuck. Moderate moslems and other student at the school feel threatened by the group attending the friday prayers, and several teachers were uncomfortable about, that a so extensive religious and political session with up to 40 students every friday had received permission to - with the principal´s permission - to find a place on the schools property: A corner to pray in for the individual has been expanded to a friday prayer for the many, filled with political agitation and fundamentalist views.

After the friday prayers last week, the joint prayers were forbidden, and the young Abu Laban has received a warning that he will be epelled if he performs religious speeches again. And his father, imam Ahmed Abu Laban, has been called in for a PTA meeting with principal Anne-Birgitte Rasmussen´s office next tuesday. ..

The old Abu Laban comments:

"I dont know, what they talk about out there (at the school - Henrik), but sometimes he (the son) asks me about quotes from the koran and the sunna. I believe in islam and freedom of speech, and I give my children much freedom. That is why I dont get into what he talks about - I am just helping him, if he is in doubt about the interpetration," says Ahmed Abu Laban.

I might throw in, that the name of the high school - Vestre Borgerdyd - means "Western Citizens Virtue". Apparently that includes promoting radical moslem organisations now.

Henrik

Sweden: Feminist Alternative

The following is the text to one of the songs sung at the tv-transmitted kongress of the new Swedish party Feminist Alternative (source: Federley):

Old, dirty man, accursed man
Destroys our world without any shame
Rapes, wages wars, fights and destroys
Get that you cant and shouldnt
Grab my pussy when you get horny
Or grab my breasts when you lust
I hate you, you accursed man
You think you know, You think you can
All about women, all about our lives
But you know nothing, so take a f*cking step
To the side, to the edge, place yourself at the edge
Fall over it, I dont give a f*ck
´Cause now its our turn
This is our revenge
We will show you
Now we take our chance
You gave yourself the role of god, so f*cking pathetic,
Yes, so you have a d*ck, is that reason enough to force an ideal upon me
For your own benefit and own f*cking pleasure
I´ll show you that I can, better than you
Even though I am a "small, weird girl"
Old, dirty man, accursed man
Better start jumping
Because here you see a woman
That hates you so much
We will tear you apart

The party, according to the polls I have seen, may attain 6-10% of the vote at the next Swedish elections.

Henrik

Local elections in Denmark: We may have our first elected islamic infiltrator

Sikandar Siddique, about whom I blogged a week ago, was elected tuesday to the city council of our capital, Copenhagen.

In Odense Anna Rytter was elected to the city council for the communists/Unity List. She is, as far as I know the first Danish convert to Islam to get in.

Other notable results of the elections:

• The Liberals had a comparatively weak showing - did not get the 50 mayoral posts (out of 98) hoped for, and hav so far only been able to pick up 2 of the 5 regions. Negotiations are still going on over the Capital Region. In addition, they lost the mayoral post in Århus, Denmark´s 2nd biggest city, and had a weaker-than-hoped-for showing in Copenhagen.
• The Social Democrats had a better showing, though they didnt attain their goal of dominating Denmark´s 4 biggest cities. They maintained power in Copenhagen and Ålborg, re-gained Århus, but lost Odense.
• The Conservatives had a good showing. Vote tallies were about on the level they used to, but the big news is, that they regained the mayoral post in Odense, after it had been in the possession of the Social Democrats for 68 years.
• For the Socialist People´s Party, the elections meant the loss of 4 out of 5 mayoral posts.
• For the small parties represented nationally, the merger of many small constituencie meant, that they are now represented in many places where they havent had influence before.
• At the same time, the slow death of the parties that emerged from the Watershed Election of 1973 continues. The Center Democrats failed to gain any seats, the Progress Party only retained one of its five seats, and for the Christian Democrats, their chairman didnt get elected.
• Finally, many of the formerly numerous local lists have failed to get in in the enlargened constituencies.

The big news about this election is, however, that we are seeing a trend towards more competitive elections. The multi-decade social democratic domination of Århus was broken at the last election, and this time around, social democratic strongholds in Odense and Svendborg were broken (after 68 and 51 years of SD rule, respectively).

Henrik

Islamic revolution to start in Denmark

From Arutz Sheva:

Islamic radicals have been using the Temple Mount as a focal point for planning and preaching the establishment of a world Islamic state with Jerusalem as its capital.

One of the radical groups operating on the Temple Mount is Hizab Altahrir (The Islamic Liberation Party), which espouses an ideology similar to Al Qaeda. Hizab Altahrir’s network spans most Western European countries. The party puts Islamic revolution and an uncompromising form of Jihad (holly war) at the top of its political agenda.

The group advocates subjecting the entire world to Islamic law (Shariya), and destroying non-believing nations and religions.

The party has targeted Europe, specifically Denmark, for spreading its ideology, and providing a springboard for renewing Islamic conquests in Europe. A senior party activist in Jerusalem, Sheikh Issam Amira, expressed this philosophy in a recent speech which he made on the Temple Mount:

“Listeners! The Moslems in Denmark make up three percent [of the population], yet constitute a threat to the future of the Danish kingdom. It’s no surprise that in Bitrab (the ancient name of Medina, a city in Arabia to which Mohammed immigrated) they were fewer than three percent of the general population, but succeeded changing the regime in Bitrab.

“It’s no surprise that our brothers in Denmark have succeeded in bringing Islam to every home in that country. Allah will grant us victory in their land to establish the [Islamic] revolution in Denmark.

”After Denmark, the Sheikh said, the party will carry the revolution to Oslo and change its name to Medina. “They will fight against their Scandinavian neighbors in order to bring the country into the territory of the revolution,” he said. “In the next stage, they will fight a holy jihad to spread Islam to the rest of Europe, until it spreads to the original city of Medina where the two cities will unite under the Islamic flag.”

I´d like to see them try it. They are in for a rude awakening.

Henrik

Lies at the Christian Science Monitor, part II

I earlier blogged the weird story about Jason Brandon aka Andrew Nassim, and how he lied his way through an article on moslems in Denmark, trying to paint the Danish People´s Party as nazis. In case you didnt catch that, I took exception to the following snippet:

The party's provocative slogan "Dit Land, Dit Valg" (One land, one people) for many people conjures up unwelcome reminders of Denmark's ambiguous role in the Nazi occupation.

"A growing number of people see being a Dane and being a Muslim as incompatible," says Moller, adding that the Danish Peoples' Party, the country's third largest, is behind controversial government attempts to stabilize Denmark's growing Muslim community at no more than 10 percent of the total 5.5 million population. Right now, Muslims make up nearly 4 percent of the population.

In an email, I pointed out to them that both sections in bold above were ouright lies.

1) In the first case, "Dit Land, Dit Valg" means "Your Country, Your Choice", not "One Land, one people".

2) In the second, not only is there no such plan, when reached by me by phone, Moller denied having said any such thing.

While the Christian Science Monitor apparently didnt find me worthy of a reply, two visitors to Viking Observer made the cut and got replies to their complaints. It acknowledges the manipulative "translation" of the slogan (still retaining the nazi association-trick, though) and acknowledges Moller never said anything about a 10% cap. It hasnt changed the attribution, though, and it still sticks with its story about a cap, saying it..

.. should have been credited to a government report: "Population Development 2001-2021' issued in 2002 by the "Think Tank on Integration in Denmark" which is part of the Danish Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs.

The problem is, that the report says absolute nothing about any cap on moslems. In fact, it mentions neither caps nor moslems at all, since its a simple population prognosis for Denmark, based on Danish statistics. If moslems were to figure there, it would be illegal, too, since the state is barred from registering people by their faith.

I wonder what explanation the Christian Science Monitor comes up with this time.

You can read the report in Danish here, and the English abstract here.

Henrik

Legal insanity in Sweden

From DR News (my translation):

A child that is being raped, is apparently not being violated in the same degree as a grown-up, and thus should get a lower compensation, says a new ruling by Svea Hovrätt.

The ruling is in a case about a 25-year-old man, who was sentenced to two years in prison for rape of a 14-year-old.

At the same time, he was sentenced to pay 75.000 crowns (about 10.000 dollars - Henrik) in compensation to the girl, plus an additional 10.000 (about 1400 dollars - Henrik) in tort claims. Svea Hovrätt confirmed the prison sentence, but lowered the compensation to 50.000 crowns, says Svenska Dagbladet.

The Court argued, that you cant put the violation that a rape of a minor is, with that of a grown-up.

I knew the ruling Swedish elite was insane, but this is just......

Henrik

A small skirmish in the media wars

Danish national public TV station DR has been known as a leftwing stronghold for more than three decades. They have normally stonewalled all critique, but after they got a new boss a couple months ago, things seem to begin changing for the better. To begin with, in the first interview he gave, he acknowledge the obvious: that DR had a slanted coverage, and that it needed correcting.

An example of the weakening resolve: This morning, DR´s text-television and news website carried a story about anti-semitism in Great Britain, that ended as follows (my translation):

A report from this year shows a rise of more than 50 per cent in the number of violent attacks on Jews i 2004. In all, 532 incidents were registered.

A fifth of the attacks were perpetrated by persons from the far right.

Of course, the singling out of "a fifth" invites to speculation about the other four fifths, and I made a mental note to investigate when I got home later in the day. Danish blogger Kim Moeller from Uriasposten beat me to it, and dug up the following from the report in question:

“The Middle East factor

Antisemitic incident levels have risen steadily since the start of the second Palestinian Intifada in October 2000. The 2004 total of 532 incidents is more than double that of 1999 - the last year before the Intifada broke out. As overall incident levels have risen, so has the proportion of incidents that are rooted in hatred for Israel and Zionism, rather than incidents that originate in the racial prejudice commonly associated with the far right. Of the 532 incidents, 124 showed clear anti-Zionist motivation, compared to 84 that were motivated by far right sentiments or ideology. There were 114 incidents involved specific reference to Israel or the Middle East; in 23 incidents “Zionism” or “Zionist” were invoked as terms of abuse while 21 involved mention of the Iraq war. The number of antisemitic incidents perpetrated in Britain fluctuates in response to events in the Middle East. This was illustrated most dramatically in March 2004, when there were 100 incidents recorded by the CST - the second-highest monthly total on record. These incidents were largely a response to the assassination by Israel of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of Hamas. In the 48 hours following Sheikh Yassin’s assassination on 22 March, the CST recorded 54 antisemitic incidents - more than has ever previously occurred in the entire month of March.”

At the same time, he sent the following mail to DR:

For whom it may concern,

You have to change the articles on DR Text and DR Online about the development of anti-semitism in England. The Internet presents an opportunity to test your information, so you have to make your propaganda more subtle.

Yours, Kim Moeller, Aarhus

Explanatory link: http://www.uriasposten.net/?p=2804.

Leftwing media resolve apparently not being what it used to, by early evening, the articles on both DR Text and DR Online had been changed. DR Text merely had the reference to rightwingers removed, without mentioning the preponderance of islamist perpetrators in anti-semitic incidents (changed part in bold):

A report from this year shows a rise of more than 50 per cent in the number of violent assaults on Jews in 2004. In all, 532 incidents were registered.

The report includes among others assault on persons and Jewish burial grounds, offensive anonymous emails and telephone calls.

The new DR Online version, on the other hand, is true to reality (my translation):

The authors of the report think, that a direct correlation between the situation in the Middle East between Israel and the palestinians, and the anti-Jewish incidents, is obvious. According to the report, only 84 of the incidents were motivated by the traditional racist and ideological views on the extreme rightwing.

A small skirmish in the medie wars, and a win for the good guys.

Henrik

Sweden: Government gone amuck

From LewRockwell:

Recently the Swedish government was forced to admit that they simply had no idea how many government agencies exist. As the major daily papers took up the issue, the Agency for Public Management were given the task of performing an official inquiry to find out how many agencies there were.

One of the first things the agency did was to call the largest free-market think tank in Sweden, Timbro, and ask whether they knew. Alas, the expansion of public bureaucracy has been so rapid in Sweden that even the opposition to central planning finds it difficult to keep track of things.

And so the investigation has been going on for a few months. The results that were recently released were shocking to say the least. There are currently 552 government agencies in Sweden, working with important issues such as making sure that those employed by the merchant fleet can consume culture or that we might have "handicraft circuses" (an ongoing project of the committee for handicraft issues).

Looking at the list of Swedish agencies and having some previous knowledge of what they spend their funds on, it is perhaps quite understandable that even our government did not know how many agencies existed – if you don’t do anything worth noticing nobody is going to be aware of your existence.

Rape in Sweden - and its perpetrators

From Dagens Nyheter (my translation):

According to a not yet published study from the Crime Prevention Council, Brå, men with a foreign background are over-represented in the group of suspected rapists. It is approximately four times more common that a known offender is born abroad, compared to persons born in Sweden.

It has looked like that for a long time, according to Peter Martens, statistician for Brå. He points out that the talk is about identified offenders. That they have been identified does not mean they have been convicted.

The lates study came in 1996, and showed that resident aliens from Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia dominate the group of suspected men. The pattern in the new study is the same.

Commonalities between the four countries cited include islamic religion and arab ethnicity.

Henrik

Pakistani priorities - when drawings are worse than mass arson

»We strongly condemn this act. I think, that the fear of islam and actions of this kind create a divide between religions, that we make enormous efforts to bridge", says Tasnim Aslam, spokeswoman for the Pakistani foreign office (source: Politiken, my translation). But what is she talking about? Is it

a) Some pictures of a pedofile robber in the Danish paper Jyllands-posten, or is it

b) The recent pogrom against Christians in the city Sangla Hill in Pakistan?

From Asianews.it:

Three churches, a nuns‘ convent, two Catholic schools, the houses of a Protestant pastor and of a parish priest, a girls’ hostel, some Christian homes, were first vandalized and then set on fire by an angry crowd of around 2,000 people in the village of Sangla Hill, Nankana district in Punjab. At least 450 Christian families fled from the village and they have not yet returned for fear of further violence.

Mgr Lawrence John Saldanha, Archbishop of Lahore Archdiocese and Chairman National Commission for Justice and Peace (see photo), told AsiaNews that “the attack seems to have been planned and organized as the attackers were brought to the site in buses and instigated to commit violence and arson. ..

Religious leaders are at least partly responsible for provoking the violence: yesterday, in mosques, they called the faithful to gather outside the Jamia Madni Masjid, the central mosque, where they urged them to act against Christians. In fiery speeches, the leaders provoked the mob to set to fire each and every Christian place of worship.

And what "provoked" this? According to Seattle Post Intelligencer (Dogar is the name of a police official):

The fires came a day after a local Muslim resident accused a Christian of burning a one-room Islamic school along with copies of the Quran. Dogar said the allegations were apparently leveled by people who lost money while gambling with the Christian man on Friday, but police had detained him and were investigating.

But to return to the original question: which of the two things was it, that the Pakistani spokeswoman condemned? Drawings or religious persecutions of Christians?

The latter, unfortunately.

Henrik

Picture perfect in Copenhagen elections - or not

The Danish blog En Dansker i Sverige has been so kind to share some pictures of election posters from Copenhagen. Some of them are quite telling, too. All pictures in this post are copyright En dansker i Sverige.


The Socialist People´s Party has had a minor accident with some of its posters - they are the wrong way around. It could be argued their ideology is the same way, of course, so maybe its not an accident after all.








Radical candidate, and openly gay Søren Bondam campaigns under the slogan "Fabulous metropolis, yes please".











Not quite so fabulous was his dustup with Liberal candidate Søren Pind, who also happens to be councilman for technical and building matters. Bondam was mad that Pind had had the lower branches of the bushes in Ørsted Park cut, so the gays couldnt have sex shielded by them. That produced the headline on the right in tabloid Ekstrabladet. It reads "Demands bushes for gays".












Finally, there is a poster for three conservative candidates. Ill get back to the one on the right, Ben Haddou, tomorrow. For today, lets concentrate on the guy on the right - Peter Schlüter.






He is mostly known for being the son of Poul Schlüter, the conservative prime minister from 1982-93. Recentely, he became notorious for a rabid attack on the Danish Peoples Party on his website. Not that the DPP doesnt get trash, like what he threw at them, every day, its just normally from teenaged leftwing radicals, not 42-year-old conservative politicians. To quote from his rantings, which he later removed from his site, once people actually became aware of them (my translations):

- Louise (Frevert - Henrik) from the DPP is a racist, who spreads nazi hate propaganda. She is afraid of darkhaired men with hairy chests.

- Pia (Kjærsgaard - Henrik) from the DPP is a racist, who spreads nazi hate propaganda. She shaves every morning and calls for mass deportation of moslems.

- Mogens (Camre - Henrik) from the DPP is a racist, who spreads ethnic cleansing-propaganda. Mogens looks like a Turk, and has had enough of Danish women. He still tries to gather the guts to take over as the new Fuehrer of the DPP.

- The entire top of the party hierarchy in the DPP are a bunch of no-good racists. The DPP uses the same nazi, hateful, racist methods and rhetorical scare tactics, that Adolf Hitler used against the jews from 1930 to 1945.

The foreign affairs spokesman for the DPP, Søren Espersen, couldnt take it more coolly:

- Peter Schlüter is a giant jackass. He´s just trying to make himself into something special in the run-up to the local elections. But I dont think, he´ll get much of a political carreer out of that. He doesnt measure up to his dad, not even close, says Søren Espersen.

He has no plans to take Peter Schlüter to court for defamation.

- That would be making too big a fuss over him, says Søren Espersen.

To be honest, I dont think I can remember local elections as colourful as the ones we are having this year.

Henrik

Islamists infiltrating the social democratic party?

I have already mentioned, that the social democrats´ candiate for the spot as mayor of our capital, Copenhagen, has been accused of justifying terrorism. Now it transpires that another candidate - Pakistani-descented Sikandar Malik Siddique (seen right) - may be a member of the radical islamist organization Hizb-ut-Tahrir. The organisation "The Freedom of Printing Society"´s online publication Sappho reports (my translation and responsibility for mistakes):

Today Sappho can reveal, that a vote for Siddique in all likelyhood also is a vote for the radical moslem organisation Hizb-ut-Tahrir, that advocates the establishement of a caliphate run along 1400-year-old principles, where there is neither freedom of speech, democracy, freedom of the courts nor rights for women and non-believers.

So far, Hizb ut-Tahrir has always claimed, that these conditions would not be introduced in denmark, but that they exclusively had far-off Oriental regions in mind. Danes thus had no reason to be nervous about the organisations agitation and big influence on especially the moslem youths in Nørrebro in Copenhagen.

Something indicates, that Hizb ut-Tahrir now also is seeking direct influence on Danish politics - and that Sikandar Malik Siddique has been chosen as the spearhead of these aspirations.

Sappho learns from multiple sources with an intimate knowledge of the extremist scene in Nørrebro, that the 19-year-old social democrat politician of Pakistani descent has been spotted at two Hizb ut-Tahrir events. In question is the mass meeting of the movement in the Nørrebro Hall on October 24th, 2001, where about 1000 excited followers turned down any thought of integration into Danish society. At the time, he was accompanied by his brother Gohar.

Sources who have known Sikandar Malik Siddique for years, have also observed him as taking part in Hizb ut-Tahrirs mass demonsration on April 16th, 2004, from Nørrebro Station to St. Hans Square.

During the march, extremist slogans agains democracy, the USA and Israel were chanted, and on St. Hans Square Hizb ut-Tahrirs spokesman Fadi Abdullatif and the Danish convert Musa Kronholt whipped up the crowd with threats of "great suffering" for Danish companies that cooperated with the Americans. ..

Siddique says, that he has been a member of DSU (Danish Social Democrat Youth - Henrik) for about a year and a half.

Asked about his association with Hizb ut-Tahrir, he says that it is irrelevant, since he is running as a local politician in Nørrebro.

Liberal candidate for the post of mayor of Copenhagen picked it up and brought it into the press. Problem was, that all sources were anonymous, and with Siddique having denied ever being a member of HuT, the case was dying due to lack of evidece. At least until the blogosphere came to the rescue. As the Danish blog Tiraden could reveal already 3 months ago, Siddique has also dabbled in denying the involvement of al Qaeda in 911. In a posting on the discussion forum of the social democratic youth organisation, he amongst others said:

The 911 catastrophe has not just ransformed our everyday lives, our way to act, but also the entire world. No matter who is responsible for this horrendous and un-human act, it has done something horrendous. The American government immediately blamed al qaeda, but to this day has not produced concrete evidence to that end.

Enough bombs have been thrown, and enough blood has been shed. We can conclude that war, force is not the solution to the problem (terror - Henrik). To make our everyday lives more secure and harmoniv, we have o get to the bottom of the root causes of terror. We are going nowhere with partial solutions. We have to get to the root causes of the problem. How can you expect of a father, who has seen his son tortured and then murdered, that he doesnt take the law into his own hands if he cant have justice.

The posting had at the time already been online for 9 months without drawing any reaction from the organisation. When Tiraden blogged it, a reply was posted, asking the social democratic youth, whether that was the kind of statements they wanted to associate with. Tiraden didnt get any reply. Instead, the organisation deleted not just the posting, but the entire discussion forum.

Thanks to blogger Thomas Lønbæk, a copy was found in archive.com, and through to the attention of the press. Finally, a reaction was forthcoming from the social democrats:

"Osama bin Laden has himself taken responsibility for the attacks, so I think he (Siddique - Henrik) should be enormously cautious about how he expresses himself. Why, the second part is even indirectly justifying terrorism," says Klaus Hansen (Social democrat), head of the social democratic group of councilmen in Copenhagen.

Sikandar Malik Siddiques own nomination district, Blågård district in Copenhagen, distances itself from him:

"Him trying to understand 911 alone sounds totally insane. Had we known about the posting, we probably never would have nominated him," says chairman Hanne Dahlerup.

Infortunately, that is where things stand for the moment.

Henrik

When a journalist just cant help but lie

The Danish defense of freedom of speach has, for the time being, fended off the bickering babble of islamic ambassadors, whining that christians cant draw their alleged prophet.

Of course, such a state of affair cant be allowed to continue, so now a journalist is trying to add fuel to the fire. Thus, the correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor in Copenhagen, James Brandon, had an article entitled "Danish editor tests right to violate Muslim taboos" in yesterdays web edition of the paper. The title is bad enough in itself, but it gets worse. In a section where he cites Bjorn Moller, senior research fellow at the Danish Institute for International Studies, the following appears (Christian Science Monitor):

The party's provocative slogan "Dit Land, Dit Valg" (One land, one people) for many people conjures up unwelcome reminders of Denmark's ambiguous role in the Nazi occupation.

"A growing number of people see being a Dane and being a Muslim as incompatible," says Moller, adding that the Danish Peoples' Party, the country's third largest, is behind controversial government attempts to stabilize Denmark's growing Muslim community at no more than 10 percent of the total 5.5 million population. Right now, Muslims make up nearly 4 percent of the population.

There is one small problem with this:

James Brandon is lying.

For one, "Dit Land, Dit valg" does not mean "One Country, One People". It means "Your Country, Your Choice". So there goes the nazi analogy.

The bigger problem is that, reached by phone, Moller denies ever having said anything about any sinister "controversial government attempts" to cap the moslem population at any percentage. It would be weird, too, since no such attempts have been made.

It gets weirder, though.

James Brandon is not his real name:

Brandon attended Westminster School in London before taking up a career in journalism. A fluent Arabic speaker, he is thought to be of Egyptian descent and has used a series of names during recent years.

Friends say his British passport includes the names James Andrew Brandon Nassim and that he was known as either Andrew Nassim or James Brandon.

James Brandon is the name he took in 2002 to, supposedly, make it easier for him to report from arabic countries. How changing your name from an arab one to a British one is supposed to do that is beyond me. And it gets even murkier than that. Nassim/Brandon

.....has denied claims he had stolen the identity of a pupil at his former school.

James Brandon, who was called Andrew Nassim until two years ago, said he had changed his name by deed poll to make it easier for him to report from Arabic countries.

A pupil named James Brandon had attended Westminster public school in London, where the freelance reporter was educated.

Yesterday, the journalist denied he had appropriated his name from the former pupil and said the similarity was "entirely coincidental".

The whole case about his name and descent first came to the fore when Nassim was kidnapped by islamist militiamen in Iraq in 2004. He was intially beaten, but the hostage drama had a strange ending:

The Iraqi militants who took Brandon captive had threatened to kill him unless US forces pulled out of Najaf, the scene of bitter fighting for a week.

But hopes for his release rose when Sheikh Salah al Obeidi, a spokesman for Al-Sadr in Baghdad, condemned the kidnapping and said: "I will do my best to end this unacceptable problem."

He added: "We do not accept such actions. Journalists are our brothers, our friends, and they reflect our opinions and they convey our voices to all of the world."

Indeed, Nassim/Brandon had been reporting on how the jihadist militiatmen of Moqtada al-Sadr were being received favorably by the local population. Even weirder was his reaction once freed, after being shot at, subjected to beatings and mock executions:

Sporting a black eye, he said: "Initially I was treated roughly, but once they knew I was a journalist I was treated very well and I want to say thank you to the people who kidnapped me."

Stockholm syndrome? I dont know.

All I know is that James Brandon/Andrew Nassim is lying in his article, and that he has a very strange pre-history in reporting.

UPDATE:

More on Nassims background:

Brandon would have been an ideal recruit. London-born, and with a first class honours in history from the University of York, he also studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at London University.

At the SOAS he majored in "modern trends in political Islam" and wrote a dissertation on "Islamic fundamentalism and nationalism in the contemporary Middle East".

He spent four months between the universities working on a newspaper in Yemen. As both a reporter and a sub-editor on the Yemen Times, a weekly English language newspaper in Sana'a, he reported mainly on the oil industry, and used the time to master Arabic.

I havent been able to trace the source for this story posted on a discussion forum:

As the journalist was last night handed over to British diplomats, the unusual route he had taken to get to Iraq in the first place was becoming clear. The son of an Egyptian-born businessman, Mr Brandon has no formal training in journalism and until last summer was a student at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. He had graduated from York University with a first class history degree. His thesis for his master's degree was: "Islamic fundamentalism and nationalism in the contemporary Middle East."

After spending a summer two years ago working for an English-language newspaper in Yemen, he decided to travel to Baghdad, where he worked on a magazine before joining a growing coterie of freelance reporters. The Briton specialised in business reporting but also wrote news stories for British papers including The Independent, The Scotsman and The Sunday Telegraph.

David Enders, Mr Brandon's former editor on the Baghdad Bulletin, a fortnightly magazine founded after the fall of Saddam Hussein, described him as a "very quiet" and private person with rudimentary spoken Arabic. But the rookie reporter, who attended a leading public school, Westminster, apparently coped well in the dangerous environment of post-war Iraq. While on the Bulletin, before it folded in September last year, he wrote articles from Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit, and from the town of Hillah, at a time when foreigners were becoming targets for attack. ..

Friends described the journalist as being cagey about his private life. He did not speak much about his Arab heritage, although he told friends that his father, Ramsay Nassim, was Egyptian and lived in Dubai after divorcing his mother, Hilary. In 2002, he changed his name by deed poll from Andrew Nassim to his current name.

Henrik

"The religion of peace"

Maybe the peace you find in a graveyard. From an ordinary thursday in October:

Afghanistan: Afgjan "rebel attacks" kill nine

Argentina: Buenos Aires bomber "identified"

Iraq: Bomb attack on Baghdad restaurant

Jordan: "Al-Qaeda link" to Jordan blasts

France: Curfew for riot-hit French towns

Indonesia: Bali bomb maker confirmed dead

Henrik

"victims"

I promised myself, I would only touch upon Scandinavian issues, but this one is so bad, it makes my blood boil. It is a story that has been known for some time now in French media, and is only now beginning to seep into the english-language media. The Observer has taken it up, but in a way that angers me beyond belief. More about that in a bit.

By now, everybody should have heard about the riots in France, now in their 10th consecutive day. The ritual burning of all things available has resulted in several thousand cars, nurseries, schools and assorted other buildings burned. A handicapped woman unable to get off a bus has been doused with gasoline, then set on fire. She luckily survived.

The Observer is the Sunday edition of the British leftwing paper the Guardian, and for this Sunday the paper had opted to include a "Focus"-article on the riots. It opens up with victimology at full tilt, assuring us of the innocence of the two youths, then describing how they ran from police despite said innocence. We end up with the youths killing themselves when they choose to crawl over a 2-metre wall adorned with scull and crossbones, to be electrocuted by the electricity substation behind the walls. The thing gets raised a notch more by the mention of the two devastated families.

But during all the coverage of the riots, did you ever hear about Jean-Claude Irvoas?

The same day that the two youths electrocuted themselves, Mr. Irvoas (51) got out of his car to take a photo. Instead, he was set upon by three arabs and beaten to death while his wife and daughter - both still in the car - could only look on in horror.

Nobody rioted for him.

But that is not what angers me - that is the treatment the Observer chose to give him. After the victim-worship of the two youths in the top-3 paragraphs of the article, Mr. Irvoas is stashed in part of the 2nd-last paragraph, but only as a pawn in an evil politicians´plot to get "the intolerant rightwing vote". What brings my blood to near-evaporation state is that neither he nor his family qualify as victims - they are "victims" - hyphenated people who apparently had it coming since they werent black or moslem.

The full treatment by the Observer:

Yet in a country where 28,000 cars have been burnt on housing estates this year alone, Sarkozy's gamble for the intolerant right-wing vote could still pay off. In today's Le Monde, the Interior Minister is unrepentant in a personal opinion piece titled 'Our strategy is the right one'.

Last week, on the day Bouna and Ziad were killed, Jean-Claude Irvoas, 51, got out of his car in Epinay-sur-Seine to take a photograph. As his wife and daughter sat in the car, Irvoas was attacked by three men, said to be Arabs from a nearby housing estate, and savagely beaten. He died in hospital later that evening. While speaking of the perpetrators, Sarkozy speaks to France's 'victims' - and they don't live in Clichy-sous-Bois or Aulnay-sous-Bois.

If in the past the 'louts' were forgotten, it looks like they could now be used as pawns by France's politicians.

If you, like me, want to express your disgust to the Obersver/Guardian, the following email addresses should be of help:

For the web-edition the links direct you to:

• Emily Bell, editor in chief - editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk
• Newsdesk - editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk

For the paper as such, the following addresses should be of use:

• News desk - home@guardian.co.uk
• Foreign desk - foreign@guardian.co.uk
• Readers´ editor - Ian Mayes, reader@guardian.co.uk

Also, feel free to tip off whatever blogs you may frequent, and suggest them to take part.

Henrik

Background on the terror suspects

From Berlingske Tidende. Those under arrest in Denmark (my translation):

• A. Male, 20 years old. Lived in the public housing project of Tranemoesgård in Brøndby. Came to Denmark in 1993 with the rest of his family as Bosnian refugees. Got increasingly religious. Was arrested on the Technical School of Copenhagen, where he is under education to become an industrial technician.
• B. Male, 16 years old. Grew up in Denmark, probably of Palestinian descent. According to several papers, he is the youngest in a group of 11 siblings with religious parents. Has according to several papers received his exam from the moslem Al-Quds grade school.
• C. Male, 19 years old. Lived in Frederiksberg. Af Middle-Eastern descent. Student, and employed by TDC (Denmarks largest telephone service provider).
• D. Male, 16 years old. Lived in Outer Nørrebro. Of Middle-Eastern descent. Attends hich school as a freshman. Practiced karate, and was about to attain a black belt.
• E. Male, in his 20s. Hails supposedly from Uganda, and works as a mechanic. Moslem, living in Greater Copenhagen. Attended the mosque in Islamic Congregation until half a year ago. Married to F, and also has close relations with A, B, C and D.
• F. Female, in her 20s. Hails supposedly from Georgia. Living in Greater Copenhagen, and married to E. Has close relations with A, B, C and D.
• G. Male, supposedly 22 years old.

Six of the seven apaprently attended the same mosque in Copenhagen:

Most of the youngsters arrested last week for organising terrorist activities in Denmark, attended the same mosque in Copenhagen's Nørrebro district, daily newspaper Information reported on Wednesday.

The six young people were burdened by a colossal hatred towards society, leaders of the mosque, The Islamic Congregation, told the newspaper.

'They were popular, polite, and good students, but they harboured an enormous anger towards Danish society. Their fury grew stronger and made them introverted,' said Abu Laban, the mosque's imam, of the six 16-20-year-olds.

Laban said he knew two of the young men and their families well. The mother of one of them is associated with the Islamic Congregation, where she volunteers to teach Arabic every weekend.
'The mother said her son had lately become more and more frustrated and angry towards Danish society, which he criticised harshly. Even if he sometimes sounded like he could go to extremes, his mother is certain that he would never had carried any of it out - and mothers can usually tell the difference between their children's words and deeds,' Laban said.

The two arrested in Bosnia are the following:

• X (initials AKC). Male, 18 years old. Turkish citizen with permanent Danish residence permit. Lived with his family in Avedøre, and became increasingly religious over the last couple years. Came to Sarajevo on October 14th to meet up with Y. Was arrested in the same city on October 19th while in possession of explosives and weapons.
• Y. Male, 18 years old. Lived in Kungälv near Göteborg in Sweden. Swedish and Montenegrin citizenship. According to several media born in Serbia, but moved to Sweden in 1994. Adherent to wahabbism. Appears according to the Bosnian paper Slobodna Bosna in a video as a future suicide bomber with the British or American embassy in Sarajevo as its target.

Henrik

More on terrorist apologia

Here is the relevant parts of the exchange that is creating an uproar in the mayoral race in Copenhagen. It is part of a series of exchanges between Liberal Candidate Søren Pind and Social Democratic candidate Ritt Bjerregaard, that is running daily in the paper Berlingske Tidende until friday. From Berlingske Tidende (sorry, articles arent online. Translation mine):

Now we have a man in the heart of Copenhagen, who is charged with accessory to terrorism. There is, according to the press´s descriptions of him, nothing about him that indicates he is a terrorist. He has gone to school. He is young. And he is apparently a radical moslem - islamist. The exact group you and your party refuse to do anything about. Every time we in City Hall have tried to touch upon an organization like Hizb-ut-Tahrir, that is part of the reason PET has equipped Naser Khader with bodyguards, you wont be part of it (PET = police intelligence. Naser Khader = Radical MP from Pakistan, who has spoken out against radical islamists). Every time I discuss prevention as part of the integration process with you, and tell you that we also have to understand the middle-eastern concepts of honor and religious aspects - in other words culture - you refuse to take this into consideration. You have plenty of times claimed, that is solely a question of social problems. I dont think you can solve the city´s massive crime problems amongst young immigrants with that attitude. It has nothing to do with social conditions. These people belong, like in England and the USA, to the midde- and even upper class. But they are ideologues. Ideology is not a social matter. It is cultural. The city has an enormous task in the preventive work. Unfortunately, I think you will just throw more money at the problem. Your effort wont help those, for whom the primary challenge is not social. But cultural.

Ritt Bjerregaards reply:

But you are not capable to draw the right conclusions of neither this episode nor the terror-threat in general. You lack level-headedness and clear-sightedness in your estimation of the serious problem, that the terror-threat consitutes. It is not suitable for a responsible politician to view threats, violence and terror as cultural or ideological problems. The task of the responsible politicians and officials is to have these crimes are solved, and to prevent that that kind of monstrosities are repeated. That is first and foremost a task for the police and police intelligence. The task of the responsible politicians is to support the police in whatever way, it asks. The government has led Denmark into war - based on lies, even - and we unfortunately have to count on the horrible consequences. He who sows the wind, reaps the storm. Forethought and level-headed analysis is in need. That is not what you deliver in your letter. Broad generalizations about large demographic groups serve no goal. There is no evidence to support the idea, that all moslems are criminals or sympathise with terrorism.

Søren Pind said no such thing, of course.

Our task as local politicians with responsibility for Copenhagen are social and cultural. We best solve these tasks, if we cooperate and keep our private thoughts about security policy and policework to ourselves.

Henrik

Danish PM Fogh to take Turkish colleague to school over suppression of free speach

From Jyllands-Posten (my translation):

Fogh to take Turkish colleague to school on freedom of the press

Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Liberals) will personally teach Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan about freedom of the press and speech, when his Turkish colleague visits Copenhagen in a couple of weeks in connection with a NATO-summit.

That is what the PM declared wednesday during questioning time in Parliament

By request of the Danish People´s Party, Fogh Rasmussen said, that he will raise the matter of the letter of complaint that 11 moslem ambassadors - amongst them Turkey´s - have written about Jyllands-Postens Muhammed-drawings. At the same time, he refused to intervene in the currently running negotiations for the admission of Turkey into the EU based on the the Turkish ambassador´s co-signature.

I dont think, it was smart of the 11 ambassadors to send that letter, the PM said. The Turkish PM is due to arrive in Copenhagen on 14. Nobember in connection with a meeting of NATO´s parliamentarian assembly 11.-15. November.

Henrik

Danish terror cell may have targeted Danish-Israeli football match

Im sorry I havent been reporting on the terrorist cell exposed here in Denmark, but its quite hard to get a full picture of it all from the multitude of snippets that have gotten into the press, and it hasnt gotten any easier after the police decided to put a lid on the case:

Friends of one of the six youngsters suspected of planning a terrorist attack have been making repeated attempts at slipping secret messages into his prison, police in the Copenhagen suburb of Glostrup said on Tuesday.

National broadcaster DR reported that the police feared that the detainees' accomplices were trying to warn him or pass on to him information about the investigation from outside the prison.

Police had therefore decided to put a lid on information to the media about the terrorist cell. Six of its suspected members were arrested in the capital area on Thursday and Saturday after their names were linked to a large arsenal in Sarajevo last week, which included explosives, sniper weapons, and vests used by suicide bombers.

Tuesday, November 1st saw police arrest a 22-year-old man, thus bringing the total number of suspects under arrest to seven in Denmark and two in Bosnia. Another three suspects are on the run in Bosnia, and police have not ruled out that more will be arrested in Denmark. At the same time, the investigation broadens to also take a break-in in a Bosnian arms depot and an attempt to smuggle explosives into Denmark in September into account (from Jyllands-Posten, my translation):

According to the Bosnian daily Dnevni Avaz, the police in the city of Pale wednesday received report, that there had been a break-in in a military depot in the city Jahorinski Potok near Pale. The depot belongs to the army in the Serbian part of Bosnia, Republika Srpska.

The spokesman of the army confirms, that a number of detonators were stolen. But Dnevni Avaz brings into knowledge, that explosives were also stolen, probably a long time before it was reported to the police, and discusses therefore a possible connection with the arrests of eight terror-suspects in Sarajevo and Denmark. According to the information in possession of the paper, investigators are currently looking for a possible connection. ..

At the same time, a weapons find on the Gedser Ferry is also considered in connection with the investigation. On 10. September German customs agents found five packages of the military explosive TNT in a plastic bag in a bus on its way from Sarajevo to Sweden through Denmark, and the police now look on that find with new interest, says police chief Sten Skovgaard Larsen, Glostrup Police:

"It would be bad police work, if we didnt have a look on cases that are similar to those we are investigating. We dont know as of yet, what significance it may have. But the case obviously has interesting aspects for us," he says.

According to NDR, the Bosnian had hidden the explosives (around 1 kilogramme) in a plastic bag in a box for pastries. It was found during a routine search for smuggled cigarettes. Finally, today it emerged that the possible target of the terror cell might have been a football match played today between a Danish and an Israeli team (from Politiken, my translation):

One of the youths who is charged with being a member of a terror cell, was stopped by police 14 days ago outside Brøndby Stadium.

The police thinks, that the young man and his companion acted suspiciously, TV-Avisen (Danish public TV-stations news show - Henrik) says.

Suspicions about terror against Israel match

Glostrup Police now investigates, whether the two men were reconnoitering as part of terror-plans leading up to the UEFA match with the Israeli team Maccabi Petah Tivka.

Since it is an Israeli team, Glostrup police already had a heightened level of readiness surrounding the match.

Large numbers of police are in place to protect players and the expected 29.000 spectators against terrorist attack. The match starts at 8.30 PM.

Close call, if the suspicions prove to be reality.

Henrik

PM enters mayoral race over terror apologia

The mayoral race in Copenhagen is heating up after Social Democratic candidate Ritt Bjerregaard on one hand tried to deny the Liberal candiate Søren Pind the security argument (rightwingers = more believable on security) while at the same time pandering to radical islamists by excusing terrorism. From Jyllands-Posten:

Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen entered the municipal election debate in Copenhagen on Wednesday, criticising Social Democratic top candidate Ritt Bjerregaard for her comments on terror and the war in Iraq.

Bjerregaard, who is .. the current favourite for Copenhagen's mayor post in the 15 November elections, wrote a debate article in daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende, where she chained together the looming threat of terror in Denmark and the nation's participation in the war in Iraq.

'The government has led Denmark into war - based on deceitful grounds - and we must unfortunately prepare to pay a high price for it. You reap what you sow,' Bjerregaard wrote The comment caused an uproar in the Liberal Party, where politicians demanded that Bjerregaard retract her statement.

Rasmussen said, however, that he did not see any reason for Bjerregaard to withdraw her statement, what was said was said, but he found her opinions strange.

'When you formulate yourself as she does, you risk defending terrorism, or at least excusing it,' he told Berlingske Tidende. 'I think that is unfortunate and inconsiderate.'

PM Fogh again stands on the side of freedom of speech. Other politicians from his party didnt express themselves in so soft tones, though (From Jyllands-Posten (my translation)):

Two Liberal politicians wednesday attacked Ritt Bjerregaard (Social Democrats) with accusations that she has both made excuses for islamic terror as a part of her electoral campaign, while at the same time expressing an oppinion, that terror shouldnt be a topic Copenhagen´s mayor should busy himself with to any big extent.

Foreign spokesman for the Liberals, Troels Lund Pulsen, reacted on the oppinion piece in Berlingske Tidende.

In it, Ritt Bjerregaard among other things writes: "The government has led Denmark into war - and based on lies, at that - and we unfortunately have to count on the horrific consequences. He who sows the wind, reaps the storm".

With those words, Ritt Bjerregaard is in line with the extreme islamists, Troels Lund thinks. He demands that she retract her statements.

City Councillor for Culture, Martin Geertsen (Liberals), attacks statements Ritt Bjerregaard made to the TV2 News (Denmarks 2nd-biggest television channels news show - Henrik).

- Of course terror is something the mayor of Copenhagen should busy himself with... It is scary, that Ritt Bjerregaard apologizes terror and flees reality, Martin Geertsen says.

Note, by the way, how Jyllands-Postens translation of Bjerregaards terrorist apologia is weaker than mine. If you know any Danish, go to the second link and satisfy yourself that my translation is truer to the original than Jyllands-Postens.

Anyway, this comes after a proposal by Ritt Bjerregaard to demand of private companies contracting with the Copenhagen City Council, that they have a certain number of immigrants as employees. She apparently didnt care that that meant firing Danes to have jobs for the immigrants to take. Legal experts were also quick in shooting the proposal down, judging it illegal (ie, unable to conform with current law).

UPDATE:

For background on the political system in Denmark, go here.
If you just want a short run-down of what the Danish parties are about, go here.

Zero tolerance for Århus rioters

Danish police is cracking down on the rioters who ravaged a suburb of Århus over the weekend. From DR:

Police in Århus have announced a zero tolerance policy over for the troublemakers who have been rampaging through a suburb of Århus during the weekend.The area of Viby, just outside central Århus has witnessed a spate of riots all weekend with shop windows being smashed, a kindergarten burnt out and general violence occurring between mainly young people with immigrant backgrounds and the police. The zero tolerance hard-line has met criticism from an expert in youth research. Susasne Branner Jespersen said that a zero tolerance stance only increases the hatred between the youths and police. The Mayor of Århus Louise Gade dismissed the concerns of experts and said that a hard-line must be taken with these troublemakers so ordinary law-abiding citizens could feel safe in their homes.

While the riot has been quelled in Denmark (in all fairness, the problem is also vastly smaller here), the 3rd Intifada is progressing in Paris, France as moslem gang wars do (from the BBC):

Rioting youths opened fire on police and set dozens of vehicles ablaze in a seventh night of violence in Paris.

In escalating scenes of unrest, four shots were fired while gangs besieged a police station, set fire to a car showroom and threw petrol bombs.

At least 15 people were arrested and nine injured across north-east Paris. ..

Wednesday night's violence erupted in 10 areas across the Paris department of Seine-Saint-Denis, home to largely poor north African communities.

Two live rounds were fired in the town of La Corneueve, and fire fighters in Saint Denis and Noisy-le-Sec were also shot at, a senior local official said.

Two primary schools, a post office and a shopping centre were damaged and a large car showroom set ablaze in the flashpoint town of Aulnay-sous-Bois. ..

There was violence in another northern area, Le Blanc Mesnil, where a French TV truck was overturned and burned.

Other violence flared in the western region of Hauts-de-Seine. A police station there was bombarded with Molotov cocktails, AFP news agency reports.

The reason for the trouble in France is, that PM Sarkozy has ordered riot police into the suburbs to restore control over areas, that have essentially slipped out of control over the last two decades. From the International Herald Tribune, citing an interview with Sarkozy that took place 2 days before the current riots:

Since the start of the year, 9,000 police cars have been stoned and, each night, 20 to 40 cars are torched, Sarkozy said in an interview last week with the newspaper Le Monde.

Things havent quite gotten as bad in Denmark. Even in the city I live in (Odense, pop. 200.000) we have had trouble with muslim gangs in the ghetto Vollsmose, though, with immigrants torching garbage bins, stoning cars and destroying the local police station (only manned part-time back then). For a long time, fire engines and ambulances had to be escorted into the ghetto, and cab drivers refused to go there, until they had video cameras installed in their cabs.

Henrik

Islam vs. Free Speech: The case of Denmark

With permission from Fjordman, I hereby reproduce his entire posting about about the whole "pictures of Mohammed" affair. Thanks, Fjordman:

Since the murder of the Islam critical Dutch film director Theo van Gogh, Danish artists have become fearful of criticising Islam. Author Kåre Bluitgen is due to publish a book on the prophet Muhammad, but so far no one had agreed to illustrate the work through fear of reprisals from Islamic extremists. Daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten responded by asking 40 illustrators to make drawings of Muhammad. Twelve illustrators heeded the newspaper's call, and sent in cartoons of the prophet which were published in the newspaper. Some Muslims took offence, as pictorial depictions of Muhammad are banned in Islam. 'This type of democracy is worthless for Muslims,' Imam Raed Hlayhel wrote in a statement. 'Muslims will never accept this kind of humiliation. The article has insulted every Muslim in the world. We demand an apology!' Jyllands-Posten described the cartoons as a defence for 'secular democracy and right to expression'. It is not the first time Hlayhel has created headlines in Denmark. One year ago, he infuriated the nation during a Friday prayer session by insisting that Muslim girls should cover themselves from head to toe, and neither wear perfume nor go to the hairdressers if they want to have any chance of going to heaven.

The case has since then escalated in severity. Death threats have forced daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten to hire security guards to protect its employees. Journalists and editors alike have received threats by email and the telephone. Editor Juste said the cartoons had been a journalistic project to find out how many cartoonists refrained from drawing the prophet out of fear. 'We live in a democracy,' he said. 'That's why we can use all the journalistic methods we want to. Satire is accepted in this country, and you can make caricatures. Religion shouldn't set any barriers on that sort of expression.' Juste's opinion was not shared by Århus imam Raed Hlayhel, who gave an interview to the Internet edition of Arabic satellite news channel al-Jazeera telling that he considered the cartoons derisive of Islam, and described one of the drawings as showing Muhammad wearing a turban-like bomb. Several thousand Muslims demonstrated in Copenhagen against the treatment of Muslims in general and the images of Muhammad published by the newspaper Jyllands-Posten in particular. "We fear that this could lead to violence and extremism, and that young people can decide to carry out extremist acts. We call upon the government to ban degradation of religions and hope that Jyllands-Posten will respond to just criticism," said Danish Muslim Katja Hansen.

Pictures of bombs exploding over of Danish daily Jyllands-Posten and blood flowing over the national flag and a map of Denmark are among the images circulating on the Internet. Daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende reported that the collages showed pictures of various tourist attractions in Denmark and stated that 'The Mujahedeen have numerous targets in Denmark - very soon you all will regret this', amongst other things. Another picture showed soldiers, armed with bombs, over a map of Denmark, with blood spattered over parts of the country. Recently, four young men between 16 and 20 years of age were taken into custody yesterday in Brøndby, a suburb of Copenhagen, charged with planning terrorism. The police say that the action was planned for 'a European target within the near future', and some of the items found indicated that it was likely a suicide bombing that was in the works. The four arrested are described as inconspicuous and well-behaved young men. All four are born and bred in Denmark, although only one has Danish citizenship. Their friends and relatives had become bemused in recent weeks as the boys had begun to meet at various mosques to pray, adopting a radical tone that was worrying to some of their relatives.

A number of Muslim countries with embassies in Denmark have sent a protest to Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen about the caricatures. 'We are hoping for understanding about Muslims' feelings about Muhammad and an apology from Jyllands-Posten,' said Mascud Effendy Hutasuhut, minister counsellor at the Indonesian Embassy. The Turkish Foreign Ministry and the Turkish ambassador to Denmark fully supported the move. In a letter, they urged PM Rasmussen to call the newspaper to account for "abusing Islam in the name of democracy, human rights and freedom of expression." Liberal party foreign spokesperson Poulsen says EU candidate country Turkey's approval of the letter underlines how important it is for Turkey to live up to freedom of expression demands. Prime Minister Rasmussen denied the ambassadors’ request. 'This is a matter of principle. I won't meet with them because it is so crystal clear what principles Danish democracy is built upon that there is no reason to do so,' said Rasmussen. 'As prime minister, I have no power whatsoever to limit the press - nor do I want such a power,' he said. 'It is a basic principle of our democracy that a prime minister cannot control the press.' 'Some people say that the press needs to be constructive, and sometimes I also think that'd be nice. But who's to say what's constructive? That's an unfair demand to make. The press needs to be critical - I need to bear that as prime minister and religions must do so as well,' he said.

International Muslim organisations are to take over the discussion about whether a Danish newspaper was in its rights to print caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. After Rasmussen also refused to meet with the ambassadors, Egyptian Ambassador Mona Omar Attia said in a Danish news broadcast on Tuesday that the group planned to meet to discuss contacting other parliamentary leaders, some of whom had urged the PM to hear the ambassador's complaints. After meeting at the Saudi Arabian Embassy on Wednesday, however, the group said they had decided to let international Muslim groups take over the cause, allowing groups such as the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to try to influence the prime minister. The conference represents 56 member states and has already sent a letter of protest to the government. 'It's out of our hands,' said Attia after the meeting. 'Now it is moving up to the international level. Therefore, we will not try to contact Denmark's political leaders. 'One could imagine that the Arab League will weigh in soon,' she said.

When some Muslims complain about their religion being slighted, the entire Islamic world seems to support them. Unfortunately, the same is not the case with the infidels using their freedom of speech. They are too frequently left to fight alone, with little support. This needs to change. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), with dozens of member states backed by Saudi oil money, is now up against one newspaper and the government of a nation of just above 5 million inhabitants. But what is at stake is nothing less than the very concept of freedom of speech and thus democracy itself, an issue far greater than Denmark. It is totally unacceptable that Muslims try to intimidate the citizens of free nations from speaking their minds, and it is time that this is made clear in no uncertain terms. As an expression of solidarity, you can send in this draft message:

I would hereby like to express my support for the newspaper Jyllands-Posten publishing cartoons of Islam’s prophet Muhammad. Freedom of speech is the lifeblood of a democratic society, and cannot be tampered with. Muslims in Denmark freely exercise this right, even to say things that people in Denmark find greatly offensive. A leading Danish mufti in 2004 said that Danish women not wearing the veil “were asking for rape.” Another imam wanted to import the sharia concept of blood money to Denmark, and pay the equivalent of 100 camels for a man’s life. If Muslims in Denmark think these are acceptable statements, they cannot by any right claim to be offended by a few simple drawings. At least not if they really mean that Islam is compatible with Western democracy. Jyllands-Posten should know that this case is being followed by individuals from all around the world, and that you have the support of thousands of people who don’t want to see their freedom slip away. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen should also be commended for his clear and principled stand in this case, as Dutch ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali points out. In an age where too many political leaders shy away from defending the basic values of our societies, it serves to Denmark’s credit to have a leader who still possesses a backbone.

I would also like to condemn the actions made by the ambassadors of several Muslims countries in this case, and those of Turkey in particular. The behavior of the Turkish government is incompatible with that of a nation with a desire to become a part of a Western community such as the EU. If Turkey thinks that the EU shouldn’t be a Christian club, than Turkey should respond in kind by withdrawing from all “Islamic clubs” such as the OIC. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has earlier stated that anti-Islamism should be viewed as a ”crime against humanity”, has pushed for criticism of Islam to be treated as racism within the EU and is now backing an effort to curtail the freedom of speech of the citizens of an EU nation. These actions are not those of a secular politician such as Ataturk, but more closely mirror the attitude of the Ottoman sultans of old. They indicate that a Turkey within the EU would threaten the freedom of European citizens, and clearly demonstrate that Turkey is not yet ready to become a part of the European community.

Suggested email addresses:

Newspaper Jyllands-Posten:

• jp@jp.dk
• debat@jp.dk

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen:

• stm@stm.dk

Embassy of the Republic of Turkey, Copenhagen, Denmark:

• turkembassy@internet.dk

Office of the Turkish President:

• cumhurbaskanligi@tccb.gov.tr

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC):

• info@oic-oci.org
• cabinet@oic-oci.org