In Copenhagen, Sydney-based climate justice advocate Natasha Verco, as well as US activist Noah Weiss, faces charges under Denmark’s “terrorism” laws. Verco faces up to 12-and-a-half year jail for her role in organising protests against the United Nations Copemnhagen climate summit in December.
The two activists appeared in court on March 18.
Verco was arrested while riding her bike on December the 13 ahead of a national day of action she was helping organise the following day.
She said: “A plainclothed police women jumped out at me and ... took me to an unmarked police van.
“I asked them, ‘Are you randomly picking me up?’ and they said ‘No, we hunted you’.”
Verco was then held in in isolation — in an underground carpark — for about 16 hours before being taken to Copenhagen’s Vester prison where she was held for a further 23 days.
Verco said she was charged the day after being taken to prison, but bail was refused.
“I wonder what the hell they’re going to argue because I can’t see what evidence they’ve got for these charges”, Verco said.
“Under the new anti-terror laws they can do this, but it seems to me that applying terror laws to activists is steadily eroding the base of our democracy.”
More at Green Left
Something is rotten in Denmark. This is a blog about my thoughts, feelings, pictures about Denmark. I was there for one and a half year.I was impressed and disappointed at the same time. Denmark looks very well from outside but very bad from inside.
Denmark has stolen children from their foreigner parents
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Denmark 'freezes' the purchase of fighter aircraft
Denmark postponed the decision to purchase new fighter aircraft as part of cost cutting due to the economic crisis."Preliminary results indicate that it is possible to postpone for another 2 to 4 years with the F-16", the Defense Ministry announced the country.
"With this background, the Government considers it reasonable to postpone the procurement of new fighter aircraft," added the statement. The issue will be reviewed at the latest by 2014.
The defense minister, Gita Lilelount Beck said it was "common sense" to consider the issue of the new aircraft market in a few years.
Source: skai.gr & Reuters
Friday, March 19, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Chemicals are Turning Boys Into Girls
The government of Denmark has released a 326-page report affirming that endocrine disrupting chemicals are probably continuing to the birth of fewer males and the "feminization" of existing ones.
The report centers on chemicals like PVC, flame retardants, phthalates, dioxins, PCBs and bisphenol-A, all of which mimic the action of estrogen in the body. The researchers concluded that due to the prevalence of these chemicals, children could easily be exposed to high enough levels to place them at "critical risk" of harm.
The chemicals have been blamed for falling sperm counts among men worldwide, and their full effects remain unknown. A study by researchers at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands, found that male children who had been exposed to PCBs and dioxins while in the womb were more likely to dress up in female clothes and play with dolls than boys who had not been. Other research has documented a connection between prenatal phthalate exposure and "feminization" of male genitals, including smaller penises.
Evidence is increasingly emerging that estrogen mimics might also be responsible for a puzzling phenomenon: fewer boys are being born than ever before. Typically, 106 male children are born for every 100 females in most populations. In recent years, however, this distribution has been shifting in favor of females, with endocrine disruptors a likely culprit.
Source: Liberty News Radio
The report centers on chemicals like PVC, flame retardants, phthalates, dioxins, PCBs and bisphenol-A, all of which mimic the action of estrogen in the body. The researchers concluded that due to the prevalence of these chemicals, children could easily be exposed to high enough levels to place them at "critical risk" of harm.
The chemicals have been blamed for falling sperm counts among men worldwide, and their full effects remain unknown. A study by researchers at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands, found that male children who had been exposed to PCBs and dioxins while in the womb were more likely to dress up in female clothes and play with dolls than boys who had not been. Other research has documented a connection between prenatal phthalate exposure and "feminization" of male genitals, including smaller penises.
Evidence is increasingly emerging that estrogen mimics might also be responsible for a puzzling phenomenon: fewer boys are being born than ever before. Typically, 106 male children are born for every 100 females in most populations. In recent years, however, this distribution has been shifting in favor of females, with endocrine disruptors a likely culprit.
Source: Liberty News Radio
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Are media, arts and culture really starting to censor themselves?
Ranked first in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, Denmark is known for a deep attachment to free expression and press freedom. This was seen again on 16 September 2009, when the Copenhagen-based daily Politiken published Thomas Rathsack’s entire book Ranger – at War with the Elite as a free insert after the defence ministry tried to get the courts to ban it. The book relates Rathsack’s experiences as a member of a Danish special forces unit carrying our sensitive operations inside Afghanistan. [...]
In a poll of 1,010 people carried out by Ramboell/Analyse from 11 to 14 January and published in Jyllands-Posten on 19 January, 84.2 per cent said they approved of the national media’s decision not to reprint the cartoons after the latest murder attempt on Westergaard on 1 January. Only 11.7 per cent thought the cartoons should have been reprinted and 4.1 per cent were undecided. Most of those polled (57.3 per cent) nonetheless continued to support Jyllands-Posten’s original decision to publish them in September 2005 on the grounds of the right to free expression, while 32.8 per cent disapproved and 9.9 per cent had no opinion. [...]
Is following the interview with Flemming Rose Jyllands Posten’s arts and culture editor.
Read in full at Reporters without Borders for Press Freedom
In a poll of 1,010 people carried out by Ramboell/Analyse from 11 to 14 January and published in Jyllands-Posten on 19 January, 84.2 per cent said they approved of the national media’s decision not to reprint the cartoons after the latest murder attempt on Westergaard on 1 January. Only 11.7 per cent thought the cartoons should have been reprinted and 4.1 per cent were undecided. Most of those polled (57.3 per cent) nonetheless continued to support Jyllands-Posten’s original decision to publish them in September 2005 on the grounds of the right to free expression, while 32.8 per cent disapproved and 9.9 per cent had no opinion. [...]
Is following the interview with Flemming Rose Jyllands Posten’s arts and culture editor.
Read in full at Reporters without Borders for Press Freedom
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Danish authorities are racist
The Vicepresident of Det Radikale Venstre Party, Zenia Stampe, accused Ove Dahl for violation of the so-called racism paragraph (Penal Code article 266 b).
Zenia Stampe is angry at the way Ove Dahl has referred Romanian criminals. Homicide chief's opinions have fallen in the light of the extremely violent crime Monday evening on the 42-year-old Norwegian stewardess Vera Vildmyren at Radisson SAS Hotel on Amager.
The radical vice booklets mainly by the following statements by Ove Dahl in Politiken Saturday edition:
"The open borders, whereby we are overrun by Eastern Europeans. It is a huge problem. They are committing bank robberies, home robberies, serious theft, begging, shoplifting - everything."
And again: "The Romanians are unscrupulous. They kill for a couple of hundred dollars. It is a completely different culture."
According Zenia Stampe makes Ove Dahl with these statements is guilty of a violation of Penal Code section 266 b, ie. 'publicly or with intent to disseminate to a wider circle makes a statement or other communication by which a group of people are threatened, insulted or degraded on account of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation'.
Zenia Stampe elaborates: "Ove Dahl helps to legitimize racially motivated attacks, so-called hate crimes. On the way he is likely to create crime rather than preventing it. The police are there to prevent crime and provide reassurance. But with such statements, he creates insecurity - among both resident easternworkers and Danes. It is not served."
The radical politician adds' Romanians share our newspapers out and repairing the holes in our roads. It simply is not decent that they be accused of being thieves and murderers. All Danes are not murderers, just because we have Peter Lundin.
Zenia Stampe is angry at the way Ove Dahl has referred Romanian criminals. Homicide chief's opinions have fallen in the light of the extremely violent crime Monday evening on the 42-year-old Norwegian stewardess Vera Vildmyren at Radisson SAS Hotel on Amager.
The radical vice booklets mainly by the following statements by Ove Dahl in Politiken Saturday edition:
"The open borders, whereby we are overrun by Eastern Europeans. It is a huge problem. They are committing bank robberies, home robberies, serious theft, begging, shoplifting - everything."
And again: "The Romanians are unscrupulous. They kill for a couple of hundred dollars. It is a completely different culture."
According Zenia Stampe makes Ove Dahl with these statements is guilty of a violation of Penal Code section 266 b, ie. 'publicly or with intent to disseminate to a wider circle makes a statement or other communication by which a group of people are threatened, insulted or degraded on account of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation'.
Zenia Stampe elaborates: "Ove Dahl helps to legitimize racially motivated attacks, so-called hate crimes. On the way he is likely to create crime rather than preventing it. The police are there to prevent crime and provide reassurance. But with such statements, he creates insecurity - among both resident easternworkers and Danes. It is not served."
The radical politician adds' Romanians share our newspapers out and repairing the holes in our roads. It simply is not decent that they be accused of being thieves and murderers. All Danes are not murderers, just because we have Peter Lundin.
Source: Radikal næstformand anmelder drabschef (link in danish) and translation
References:
Drabschef anmeldt for racisme (1 with comments - some in english, and 2) (links in danish)
Quickies
About ACTA on Danish TV (video 6 min.)
Striking a blow for wind power (photo)
Velo-City Global 2010, Copenhagen, June 22-25
Striking a blow for wind power (photo)
Velo-City Global 2010, Copenhagen, June 22-25
Monday, March 01, 2010
Danish fury at apology for cartoon
A Danish newspaper apologised yesterday [Feb. 26th 2010] for offending Muslims by reprinting a cartoon of the Prophet Mohamed with a bomb-shaped turban, rekindling a heated debate about the limits of freedom of speech.
The Danish daily Politiken said its apology was part of a settlement with a Saudi lawyer representing eight Muslim groups in the Middle East and Australia. It drew strong criticism from the Danish media, which had stood united in rejecting calls to apologise for 12 cartoons that sparked fierce protests in the Muslim world four years ago. [...]
Politiken said it did not mean to offend Muslims in Denmark or elsewhere when it reprinted one of the most controversial cartoons, showing Mohamed wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse. Islamic law opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favourable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.
[...]. In a statement, Politiken said it "recognises and deplores" the fact that Muslims were offended by the caricature.
"We apologise to anyone who was offended by our decision to reprint the cartoon drawing," it said.
Tøger Seidenfaden, Politiken's editor-in-chief, said that the paper was apologising for the offence caused by the cartoon – not the decision to reprint it.
"We have the right to print Kurt Westergaard's drawings, we have the right to print the original 12 drawings, we have the right to print all the caricatures in the world," he told AP. "We apologise for the offence which the reprint has caused. That is what we apologise for." [...]
"Politiken's pathetic prostrating before a Saudi lawyer takes the first prize in stupidity," said Jørn Mikkelsen, editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten, which first printed the 12 cartoons. Mogens Blicher Bjerregård, the head of the Danish Union of Journalists, said Politiken was "kneeling before opponents of the freedom of press."
Source: The Independent
Reference: The Huffington Post
The Danish daily Politiken said its apology was part of a settlement with a Saudi lawyer representing eight Muslim groups in the Middle East and Australia. It drew strong criticism from the Danish media, which had stood united in rejecting calls to apologise for 12 cartoons that sparked fierce protests in the Muslim world four years ago. [...]
Politiken said it did not mean to offend Muslims in Denmark or elsewhere when it reprinted one of the most controversial cartoons, showing Mohamed wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse. Islamic law opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favourable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.
[...]. In a statement, Politiken said it "recognises and deplores" the fact that Muslims were offended by the caricature.
"We apologise to anyone who was offended by our decision to reprint the cartoon drawing," it said.
Tøger Seidenfaden, Politiken's editor-in-chief, said that the paper was apologising for the offence caused by the cartoon – not the decision to reprint it.
"We have the right to print Kurt Westergaard's drawings, we have the right to print the original 12 drawings, we have the right to print all the caricatures in the world," he told AP. "We apologise for the offence which the reprint has caused. That is what we apologise for." [...]
"Politiken's pathetic prostrating before a Saudi lawyer takes the first prize in stupidity," said Jørn Mikkelsen, editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten, which first printed the 12 cartoons. Mogens Blicher Bjerregård, the head of the Danish Union of Journalists, said Politiken was "kneeling before opponents of the freedom of press."
Source: The Independent
Reference: The Huffington Post
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