Yearbook 2008
 Denmark.
According to
Countryaah reports, the so-called Muhammadan crisis had violent
consequences during the year, both in Denmark and abroad.
In February, Danish police arrested several people
suspected of planning murder of one of the cartoonists
behind the Muhammad cartoons published in the Jutland Post
in 2005. The details of the murder plans prompted a number
of Danish newspapers to re-publish the controversial
drawings of the prophet in solidarity with Jyllands-Posten.
Muhammed.
The new publications led to protests from, among others,
Iran's Foreign Ministry, and in Afghanistan demonstrated
thousands of people demanding that Denmark's soldiers in
NATO-led forces leave the country.
In Denmark, a week of violent riots followed in several
cities, where schools, cars and garbage containers were set
on fire. Young people who participated described the riots
as protests against the cartoons of Muhammad and demanded
respect for Islam. Many young accused police for acting
brutally and racially against people with immigrant
backgrounds. School leaders called for dialogue about what
went wrong in integration policy, but Prime Minister Anders
Fogh Rasmussen explained that the noise was not the fault of
society and he urged the young people to get in the collar
and get education.
In June, a powerful car bomb exploded outside the Danish
embassy in Pakistan's capital Islamabad. It was a suicide
attack that killed six people and injured many. One of those
killed was a Danish citizen of Pakistani origin. The terror
network al-Qaeda took on the blame for the attack, which was
said to be a revenge for the publication of the Muhammad
cartoons. al-Qaeda's leader Usama bin Ladin had previously
called for attacks on Denmark because of the drawings.
The Danish security police warned that terrorist acts
were also planned in Denmark on orders from al-Qaeda and
that Danish youths underwent terror training in camps in the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions. In October, two young
men were sentenced by a Glostrup court to 12 and seven years
in prison, respectively, for planning terror attacks.
The European Court of Justice ruled in July that
Denmark's demands for family immigration violated the EU's
free movement of labor. A number of Danish politicians then
wanted Denmark to ignore EC law. The Danish People's Party
accused the court of pursuing politics instead of
interpreting laws and threatened to withdraw its support to
the government if it bowed to Brussels. However, after a
fierce domestic political debate, the Danish People's Party
succumbed and supported the government's proposal to allow
immigration even for persons under the age of 24.
In September, an agreement was signed on a bridge
construction between Denmark and Germany over the Fehmarn
belt. The bridge is expected to be completed in 2018. Then
it will take twelve minutes by car the distance traveled by
the ferries between Rødby and Puttgarden today in just over
45 minutes.
The Conservative government party changed leaders during
the fall, when Lene Espersen succeeded Bendt Bendtsen.
Former Minister of Justice Espersen also replaced Bendtsen
in the post of Minister of Finance in the government.
In October, the government lowered GDP growth forecasts,
which were expected to fall below one percent during the
year. The repercussions of the financial crisis on Denmark
sparked renewed debate on Denmark's need for a transition to
the euro, and the prime minister declared that a new
referendum on the issue would be held during the term of
office.
According to a research report from Michigan University
in the US during the year, the Danes are the happiest people
in the world. The researchers had well researched the
finding in 97 of the world's countries.
Political litigation
In 2006, the Ministry of Justice initiated a series of
political litigation. However, not everyone got the desired
outcome. After 3 years of trial against 7 leading members of
Tvind for fraud, all 7 were acquitted in August. In the
media and by bourgeois politicians, the 7 were convicted in
advance. The VKO government's respect for the rule of law
was therefore immediately expressed when a number of
politicians from the Left and the Danish People's Party, in
direct extension of the judgment, demanded legislation
tightened. The accused were guilty of political optics.
Therefore, when they were acquitted, there had to be
something wrong with the legislation. Left's mayor, Birthe
Rønn Hornbech disagreed with the panic reaction and noted
for Information: "We are on the verge of smashing
the rule of law, and we have been for some time." She
continued: "It is a shame that every time some - perhaps -
have violated the rules, there are politicians coming
running and wanting to change the legislation."
The Ministry of Justice had better "luck" when - in
August too - Fadi Abdel Latif, the President of the Danish
branch of Hizb ut Tahrir, was sentenced to 3 months
unconditional imprisonment for "threats" against Prime
Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The occasion was a flyer
Hizb ut Tahrir handed out at a mosque in Valby in November
2004. Here, the association wrote, among other things: "Then
go off to help your brothers in Fallujah, Iraq, and
obliterate your regents if they stand in your way". Although
the text on the flyer was translated from Arabic and
addressed to Muslims in Arab dictatorship states, and
"rulers" thus referred to dictators in Arab countries, the
Justice Department chose to interpret "rulers" as the prime
minister, and the flyer should therefore be "death threats"
to the prime minister. The court followed the directions of
the Ministry and the Prosecutor's Office. Abdel Latif
immediately appealed the verdict, and the Minister of
Justice stated that she was considering an actual ban on the
association - on the basis of the Constitution's restriction
on the freedom of association for associations that "act by
violence". However, a number of legal experts with Gorm
Toftegaard Nielsen from the University of Aarhus and Jørn
Vestergaard from the University of Copenhagen believed that
the Minister of Justice was out on thin ice. Despite a large
number of violent convictions, the Justice Ministry never
succeeded in banning the rocker groups during the rock war
in the late 1990's, and Hizb ut Tahrir had no violent
convictions behind him - only convictions for threats. If
the association is to be banned, it cannot be done on the
basis of the Constitution, but only on a purely political
basis. In February 2007, Latif was acquitted in the High
Court of "threats to Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen",
The Ministry of Justice brought the Al Aqsa Association
to trial as a first trial after the original terror law
banning support for terrorist organizations. The association
had supported humanitarian projects in Palestine, which the
prosecution believed were linked to Hamas that was on the EU
terror list. The prosecution's evidence came exclusively
from Israeli intelligence, Shin Beth, and was obtained
through torture of Palestinians. A similar association in
the United Kingdom supporting the same children's
organizations in Palestine, despite Israeli protests,
several times had been acquitted by the British authorities
for terrorist support. In spring 2007, Al Aqsa was acquitted
by the district court. Lene Espersen's Ministry of Justice
appealed the decision and in February 2008 Al Aqsa was also
acquitted in the High Court.
To cover the lack of legal basis in the «terror cases»,
at the beginning of September 2006, the Ministry of Justice
conducted a dramatic police action against resident
Palestinian refugees in Odense. Led by PET and a major
police force, 9 young Palestinians were arrested and house
searches were carried out - without court orders. The fact
that the action was carried out on a thin basis was
confirmed when the arrested were to be questioned for a
constitutional hearing. 2 were already released, and the
judge agreed to only detain 2 of the remaining 4 weeks. To
emphasize the abolition of the division of power in Denmark,
Justice Minister Lene Espersen had already stated before
that the case "was the most serious ever in Denmark". The
ministry had already convicted those arrested.
In February 2007, a verdict was handed down in the High
Court over 4 young Muslims accused of terrorism. The case
had from the outset been referred to in the Danish
government media as the "terror case from Glostrup". At the
same time it was the largest trial for the Danish terrorist
legislation of 2002 and both the government media and
politicians had therefore sentenced the four young people.
In line with this, the Nominating College convicted the 4
guilty. However, the surprise came half an hour later when
the College of Judges put 3 of the 4 on the loose because
the evidence simply did not amount to sentencing. However,
the release of all four did not dare the college - for the
sake of political hinterland - and the last - a 17-year-old
Danish Muslim - was therefore sentenced to 7 years in
prison. The only terror that could be found in the case was
the terror they were accused of for 16 months. During this
period, they were held in custody - what Amnesty
International refers to as "prison without judgment", which
is widespread in other authoritarian states. In the absence
of evidence, the prosecutor built his case on so-called
"character witnesses" who testified to the accused's views
on life and on the world. The case must be characterized as
a political-religious trial.
The Supreme Court subsequently upheld the sentence of 7
years in prison. Spanish lawyers found that even in Spain,
which has a stringent terrorist law following decades of
cases against the Basque separatist movement ETA, the
evidence from the Danish case would not have been sentenced.
The prosecution allowed the acquittal of one of the three to
go to the High Court, where the acquittal in February 2008
was once again acquitted.
In the spring, the "bookseller from Brønshøj",
Danish-Moroccan Said Mansour was sentenced to 3½ years in
prison for showing and selling Arab splatter films. Mansour
had already been in custody for 1½ years. Even the
prosecutor subsequently stated that it was an exceptionally
strict punishment. The punishment remained unchanged due to
a peculiar alliance between the Islamic fundamentalist
Mansour and fundamentalists in the Danish Ministry of
Justice. Both were interested in strict punishment. Mansour,
after a few years, could be released as a martyr (victim of
justice murder), and the reactionary forces to fight against
Islam. Mansour formally failed to appeal because he did not
trust the Danish legal system. With good reason. Had the
splatter films been North American, there would have been no
case.
In September 2007, the trial began against the 4 young
people from Odense who had been arrested 1 year earlier. At
trial, it emerged that PET had used a civilian agent who in
2006 had assembled a circle of young Muslims from Odense,
had radicalized them and ended up - at the expense of the
Danish state - buying materials for making bombs. Despite
the absence of explosives and concrete plans, 2 were
sentenced to 11 years in prison and 1 sentenced to 4 years
in prison. The case thereby marked itself as a further
escalation of the Danish state's persecution of Muslims.
First by the caricature crisis of 2005-06 and then by
terrorizing young Muslims. The so-called violence case was
also characterized by a number of serious violations of
legal certainty. First and foremost is the role of PET and
the mentally unstable PET radicalizer. In democratic rule of
law, these methods would be characterized as deeply illegal.
Second, by the national court's acceptance of PET's secret
evidence. Evidence that was on the way was rejected by the
Supreme Court. A district court order ignored. Third, the
use of secret "court hearings" in which only judges and
prosecutors were present. And finally, Judge Folmer
Teilman's judicial statement of the allegations, where they
were taught that the accused were guilty and that PET's
radicalizer was a "very credible witness". The radicalizer
had been characterized as a notorious liar by employees in
the psychiatric system who had worked with him in Aarhus.
With the verdict, Denmark received another 3
political/religious prisoners - victims of judicial murder.
In the spring of 2008, the Supreme Court rejected all of the
defense's allegations of trial errors and sharpened all 3
judgments by a further 1 year.
Parallel to the Violence proceedings, the so-called
«T-shirt» case was launched against 7 people, accused of
selling T-shirts in favor of the liberation movements FARC
and PFLP, which were characterized by their political
opponents as terrorist movements. The 7 were acquitted in
December 2007, when the court did not find that the
organizations concerned were terrorist organizations. A week
later, the prosecution appealed the verdict. A few days
later, the government routinely interfered in the judicial
process, as it did in the Weekendavisen let Foreign
Minister Per Stig Møller declare his deep wonder at the
acquittal. In a historic verdict, in September 2008, the
Eastern District Court sentenced 6 of the 7 accused to
prison sentences of 2-6 months imprisonment. The verdict was
historic because it declared every organization's killing of
civilians for terrorism. The consequence of the verdict was
that all resistance movements throughout history had to be
characterized as terrorist movements - including the Danish
resistance movement during World War II. 63 years after the
end of the occupation, the Danish national court gave the
German occupying power the right: the resistance movement is
terrorists. Another characteristic of the judgment was that
it marked the goodbye of the High Court to the rule of law.
In five judgments since 2006, Community courts had called
for organizations to be removed from the EU's so-called
terror list but the justification that in a rule of law
one is innocent to the contrary is proven and
organizations have the right to defend themselves against
the prosecutors. The T-shirt verdict was a violation of
this rule of law when the accused - the PFLP and the FARC -
were not allowed to defend themselves against the charges of
terrorism.
The Supreme Court upheld on March 25, 2009 the High Court
ruling on 6 T-shirt activists. However, all convictions were
made conditional and it was halved for one of the accused,
as the High Court in his case had made trial errors. The
convicted were further fined a "fine" of DKK 1½ million. DKK
in the form of court costs. The court set the following
premise: regardless of the nature of a state, any
organization that kills civilians in it is a terrorist
organization, whether collateral damage. The Danish
resistance movement killed during World War II approx. 400
civilians (sticks), or approx. 40 times more than PFLP in
the period 2002-07. With the judgment, the Danish state
allowed a significant part of the solidarity work the trade
union movement and the popular organizations provide to the
Third World.
In April 2008, the Eastern District Court approved the
blocking of the Tamil humanitarian organization, Tamil
Rehabilitation Organizations (TRO) bank accounts in Denmark.
The blockade was made with reference to terrorist clause
114, but the prosecution did not admithaving raised
evidence that TRO is a terrorist organization. The
"evidence" approved by the court was that the TRO is listed
on the United States' so-called terror list. The national
court's order marked a new step in the settlement of Denmark
as a rule of law. The organization was convicted without
evidence of its criminal activities and citing a foreign
list that violates basic rules of legal certainty.
Organizations and individuals on the United States'
so-called terror list have been convicted on trial, without
trial, without appeal, and without compensation. Until 2008,
the Danish judiciary had recognized that the EU terror list
did not have legal validity in Denmark. Not because the list
- in the judiciary's view - was contrary to fundamental
principles of the rule of law, but because the Danish
judicial EU reservation. Such a reservation does not exist
according to the United States.
In December 2007, the Danish newspaper Information reveal
that PET had begun to clothe prisoners white coveralls and
provide them with a dense cloth bag over his head. PET
copied the United States torture methods in the Abu Ghraib
prison in Iraq and the experiences of Guantanamo. The
purpose of giving the prisoner a bag over his head was to
degrade his perceptions of opportunity, make him confused
and scared. These funds are expressly prohibited in the
Torture Convention, which Denmark has also signed and
ratified. PET's explanation for his torture of prisoners is:
«It is quite normal for arrests of this nature that a
number of security measures be taken for the purpose of
inter alia: to protect the arrested person and secure any
technical evidence in the case. "
At the beginning of 2008, the first of PET's victims from
Voldsmose was awarded DKK 600,000 in compensation.
In September 2006, the government appointed Left
political spokesman Jens Rohde as director of the
government's new TV2 radio channel. Rohde's most important
media political experience was as a sports commentator for
Viborg local radio in the 1980's. He was fired in November
2007. His radio was a failure with only a few percent
listeners, and even he was more interested in spreading
disinformation about political opponents.
Savings of DKK 150 million DKK in Aarhus and savings in
children's institutions and schools in many other
municipalities in September triggered extensive blockades
and strikes in, among other things. Aarhus, New Silkeborg
Municipality and the new Odsherred Municipality. The cuts in
the municipal budgets were a consequence of a 5-year civil
tax halt that had led to constant deterioration in the
quality of public welfare at the municipal level. This
development was reinforced in 2006 by the costs of municipal
mergers and equalization reform, which particularly affected
social democratically led municipalities, with Ballerup at
the head, which was deprived of DKK 150 million. DKK
annually as a result of the government's countervailing
reform.
Blocks, demonstrations and strikes hit the VKO government
on a sore point. Opinion surveys already showed that 70% of
the population had greater confidence that the social
democracy could secure the Danish welfare society. The VKO
government's ministers and the political spokesman of the
Left, Troels Lund Poulsen, therefore, invented the Cold War
rhetoric and blamed the trade union movement with BUPL at
the forefront of leading the people behind the light.
However, despite aggressive and arrogant rhetoric seconded
by governmental media, blockades, demonstrations and strikes
continued. Hundreds of thousands demonstrated around the
country on the opening day of the Folketing, October 3,
against the deterioration of welfare.
In August, the Danish People's Party excluded 7 local
chairmen who had welcomed the inclusion of Nazis in the
party opposite Ekstrabladet. The exclusions were
compared to the exclusions in 1999 by a group of members of
the Danish Forum. They were friends of the party's Søren
Krarup, who therefore withdrew from the exclusions. The
cleansing within the highly-governed party continued in
September and October with new exclusions. At the same time,
the party was having trouble on another front when a video
recorded on its youth organization, DFU's summer party,
showed a contest about who could swear Islam the most. The
video led to new calls for a boycott of Denmark in the
Muslim world and attacks on the Danish embassy in Tehran.
The attacks abroad were also a consequence of the
frustration over Denmark's politics that could be traced in
different parts of the world. While Norway and Sweden played
an important role as mediators and peacemakers in
international conflicts over the previous 30 years, the
Danish VKO government defined Denmark's new foreign policy
role as a supplier of mercenaries and weapons to the US
attack wars - primarily in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In December 2006, the state lost a case against the
Berlingske Tidende, which was accused of relaying
information from the defunct FET agent and Whistleblower
Frank Grevil, who demonstrated that in the first months of
2003, the government led the Folketing when it alleged that
FET had information that Iraq was in possession of weapons
of mass destruction. Although the US, UK and Denmark's
official manipulation of Iraq information has been publicly
available for years, it was the state's prosecutor in
political cases, Michael Jørgensen's claim that Berlingske's
disclosures had "compromised the security of Denmark" and
"the intelligence agency's ability to gather information in
the future". The accused was the editor-in-chief of the
newspaper and the two journalists behind the disclosures.
The state's attempt to restrict freedom of expression
however, this time was not stamped by the Copenhagen City
Council, which acquitted the accused. A year earlier, the
political prosecutor had succeeded in putting Frank Grevil
in jail on the same charges. While the judiciary in i.a. The
United States and the United Kingdom consider the right of
citizens to know that they have been manipulated by the
state, higher than the consideration of the authorities
themselves, this principle does not apply in Denmark, which
already has the most restrictive law and practice of public
administration.
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