[pp.int.general] What's going on in Denmark? - riots

[Ole Husgaard]

Hi,

Carlos Ayala wrote:
> http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gb_Oh9rwoIfa6wxMsitw7VG4k9Fw
>
> Ole, what's happening there?

This is not directly related to the Pirate Party, except that it has to 
do with another few cases of violating personal integrity.

The riots are basically by young people who think they are being 
harassed by the police.

Some time back, after wide media reports of two unrelated cases where 
somebody were killed with knifes, our politicians wanted to act. They 
passed a law giving the police powers to designate areas where they can 
search people for weapons, even if they see no indication that the 
person searched has any weapons. From the documents preparing the law it 
is obvious that these areas should be small, like a certain bar, or a 
certain place in the streets. But the police have abused this law so 
that about 90% of the central area of our capitol now consists of such 
search areas.

A group of these young people recently described it this way in a press 
release: "Basically the riots are about the way the police treats us in 
a way that is brutal, racistic and completely unacceptably violating. 
Among other things we are being talked to in a dirty way; we are being 
searched up to several times each day by the same policemen, and these 
searches violate our basic integrity because we are asked to take off 
our clothes, and the police is focusing their flashlights on our 
intimate parts in public places. This is the attitude we are met with 
from the police in our daily life. What made us react this way was that 
an old and respected man from our local area was pushed to the ground, 
and then beaten by the police with sticks while lying on the ground. It 
is one thing that we are treated this way, but it is an entirely 
different thing that our parents are treated this way!" (My probably not 
so good translation from: 
http://politiken.dk/indland/fakta_indland/article473096.ece)

Another thing that in particular young foreigners living here are angry 
about, is that we have basically dropped "habeas corpus" (the right to 
be judged by a court of law, if you are put in jail) for foreigners 
living here if suspected of planning terrorist acts. We have a case 
where two people from Tunesia are in jail because our secret service 
(PET) claims they where planning to kill some guy who has drawn a 
picture of the profet Muhammed. But neither these two people, their 
lawyers nor any judges in the court system are allowed to get any 
concrete information on the accusations. These two people could stay 
jailed for years without a conviction, and then (again without their 
case having been heard by a judge) be expelled to a country where they 
will likely be put in jail because of their religion.

Best Regards,

Ole Husgaard.

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