Danske kommuner indfører sharia hen over hovedet på borgerne

Holbæk Kommune er en af de danske kommuner, der har besluttet sig for at indføre sharia-lovgivningen i det kommunale system.

Ganske vist vil kommunens muslimske borgere ikke vide af sharia-lovgivningen, men det kan de ikke selv få lov at bestemme. Hvis de er muslimer, må de pænt underlægge sig sharia-loven og deres imams befalinger, det har kommunalbestyrelsen nemlig bestemt.

Holbæk sender ligesom en række andre kommuner ligefrem sine medarbejdere på kursus i sharia-lovgivning, så de kan kræve af deres muslimske indbyggere, at de lever op til dens bestemmelser, skriver Information.

På kurserne er der for eksempel en imam, der har forklaret dem, at det ikke er lovligt for muslimske kvinder at få børn uden for ægteskabet. Ergo, lyder den kommunale logik, må alle ugifte muslimske kvinder med børn i virkeligheden være gift, og kan altså ikke tælle som enlige forældre. Ganske vist kan man ofte ikke finde det mindste spor af den angivelige mand, men det betyder ingenting – muslimske kvinder kan ikke få børn uden for ægteskab, det siger kommunens egen imam selv.

Eller, som Information skriver:

Imamen [fortalte] bl.a. at, »hvis et muslimsk ægtepar ikke gifter sig ifølge den danske lovgivning, er det fordi, de har til hensigt at snyde samfundet for ekstra ydelser,« fremgår det af referatet, som Information har fået indsigt i. Et andet klart tegn på socialt snyd er ifølge imamen, hvis en kvinde bærer tørklæde. I så fald kan man være sikker på, at »hun ikke skilt fra sin mand, heller ikke selvom parret hævder at være det«, som der står.

Så hver gang du ser en kvinde med tørklæde, ser du altså en social bedrager! Man aner, at den gode imam nok har taget sig godt betalt for det også.

Ole Seidling, som er leder af kontrolgruppen i Høje Taastrup Kommune, svarer på spørgsmålet om, hvorvidt det ikke er langt ude at dømme alle med muslimsk baggrund efter et religiøst regelsæt, som de ikke nødvendigvis selv tror på eller lever efter:

»Der er intet, der tyder på, at imamens oplysninger er forkerte. Det svarer jo bare til ét af de 10 bud fra kristendommen – det er en faktuel oplysning.«

– Ville du bruge de 10 bud som argument i en social sag?

»Nej, men her har vi med en gruppe borgere at gøre, der i øvrigt i andre sammenhænge ofte har travlt med at slå på, at de har en særlig religion, der gør, at de skal have positiv særbehandling,« siger Ole Seidling.

Så nu er det altså lige meget, hvad de pågældende selv mener – for de skal altså pinedød gøres ansvarlige for, hvad andre i samme “gruppe” måske eller måske ikke siger og mener? Jeg tror ikke, den gik over for nogen andre end de “fremmede”, som myndighederne allerede har udvalgt som syndebuk for samfundets problemer. Føj.

Only In Denmark har også historien om, hvor glade vi åbenbart er blevet for sharia-lovgivning her i landet – så glade, at vore muslimske medborgere skal have den påduttet, hvad enten de vil have den eller ej. Endnu en gang: Føj.

Link: Sharialoven bliver brugt mod borgere i sociale sager

Stephen King taler for fagforeninger og imod Tea Party

“If you want day’s hones pay for a day’s honest work, take a union job”.

Den kendte gyser- og bestseller-forfatter King forklarer, hvorfor han støtter arbejderne i Wisconsin og resten af USA og spørger, hvorfor i al verden folk som ham selv ikke betaler mindst 50% i skat.

Via Boing Boing.

Mere om Flickrs censur af egyptiske SS-folk

Medlemmer af det egyptiske hemmelige politi, hvis primære opgave var/er at slå ned på regimets politiske modstandere.

Disse billeder er nu online igen, ikke takket være Flickr, som ikke turde modstå et ganske givet politisk pres for at tage dem ned. Du kan for eksempel se dem her eller her.

Selv om projektet med at udstille Egyptens torturbødler går flere år tilbage, kom disse konkrete billeder (i modsætning til, hvad jeg skrev i det sidste indlæg) fra sidste uges storm på det hemmelige politis hovedkvarter i Cairo.

Hossam El-Hamalawy fortæller:

When we stormed State Security Police headquarters in Nasr City, which hosted one of Mubarak’s largest torture facilities, on Saturday I found two DVDs in one of the offices, both titled “أرشيف السادة ضباط الجهاز” The Agency Officers’ Archive. The DVDs included profile pictures of State Security officers, organized in folders. Each folder had the officers’ name. Some however did not have the names. There were also sub folders that included pictures of those officers in social events like weddings.

I don’t know what was the purpose of these two DVDs, but I sincerely thank the State Security officials who gave us this present on a golden plate. I’ve uploaded the profile pictures to this flickr set and added them to the Piggipedia. I urge you all to circulate them. And if you have any more information about those officers please come forward.

Each member of SS has to be brought to justice. This was an agency devoted to spying, surveillance, torture and murder. Every member of this organization from the informer all the way up to the generals should be prosecuted. SS has to be dissolved. It cannot be “restructured” like what the current PM is calling for.

Although those torturers violated our private lives on a daily basis, bugging our phones, offices, and even our bedrooms, I will respect the privacy of their families and will not publish the photos of their social events that included family members.

Dear SS, yes you had every right to be worried from the Piggipedia. We will expose you, bring shame on you. You forced millions of Egyptians to live in fear and terror. Now you have to answer for your crimes.

Kan Flickrs beslutning om at censurere forsvares med henvisning til deres retningslinjer, som de selv gør? Nej, mener den mangeårige Flickr-bruger Thomas Hawks – det er rent hykleri:

This is one giant cop out on Flickr’s part. Flickr knows that Flickr is *full* of photos that are “not a member’s work.” In fact Flickr staff themselves routinely upload photos to their own personal photostreams that are “not their work.” For example, is this Flickr Maps screenshot of a Rev Dan Catt photograph really Flickr Chief Matthew Rothenberg’s own work? What about this screengrab of an AOL advertisement? Is this Rothenberg’s “own work?” How about this screengrab of a Valleywag page? While I suspect that this “flickrhq masturbating dinosaur award for excellence in the field of community abuse and advocacy,” is in fact Rothenberg’s own photograph, his own stream, as well as the streams of many other flickr staffers are full of photos that are not “their work.”Withdrawing Arabawy’s photos of suspected torturers by citing a technicality that the photos were not “his own work,” is disingenuous. The photos were pulled because Flickr was pressured to pull the photos and chose to respond to that pressure rather than to take a stand for freedom. Flickr knows that Flickr is chock full of photographs in photostreams that are not a members own work and this act on their part simply points to another act where they have selectively applied one of their rules to suit their needs using their overly ambiguous Community Guidelines as justification. Flickr should apologize to Arabawy and restore his photoset.

Men det kommer jo nok ikke til at ske. Og så er det godt, at vi har Anonymous og andre grupper, der ikke ryster nær så meget i bukserne som Flickr og de andre Web 2.0-dinosaurer.

Web 2.0-fail: Flickr bortcensurerer dokumentation af egyptiske Stasifolk

Wanted Egyptian Stasi Pig

Den egyptiske blogger og aktivist Hossam El-Hamalawy har i efterhånden årevis samlet billeder af egyptiske Stasifolk – medlemmer af det berygtede sikkerhedspoliti, der som deres vigtigste opgave har haft at udpege og nedkæmpe regimets modstandere, og det med ganske ubehagelige metoder – på sin Flickr-konto.

Den slags synes Flickr imidlertid ikke, at deres “pro”-konti skal bruges til, for nu har El-Hamalawy fået dette brev fra dem:

Brev om censur af billeder

Det lyder jo meget tilforladeligt med begrundelsen om, at man kun må have billeder, man selv har taget – eller gør det? Masser af mennesker lægger billeder, de ikke selv har taget, på Flickr, og det sker der næsten aldrig noget ved. Man aner, at det må være politisk motiveret – at Flickr nok synes, det er hyggeligt, at folk bruger siden til at lægge feriebilleder og den slags op.

Som El-Hamalawy selv gør opmærksom på: Billederne blev taget ned “because of ‘copyright infringement'”. Men der har næppe været fremsat noget krav om en sådan krænkelse af ophavsretten, eftersom billederne var bidraget af folk, der gerne ville have dem frem. Der er snarere tale om en politisk motiveret “proaktiv” censur fra Flickrs side.

Moderselskabet Yahoo! synes også, det er fint nok at angive folk, der engagerer sig i kampen mod et diktatur som det i Egypten eller Kina – men hvis nogen bruger deres tjeneste til at dokumentere et dikatorisk regimes overgreb , kommer de pludselig i tanker om reglerne.  Det er ærligt talt skammeligt og udstiller svagheden i det “nye” Internet – de meget store og centrale sider som Amazon, Google, Facebook og Flickr bliver også til et “single point of censorship”, hvor Censur 2.0 let kan få alt til at forsvinde fra de få steder, folk læser.

Men var den egyptiske sikkerhedstjeneste overhovedet så slem, at den fortjener at blive udstillet, dokumenteret og sammenlignet med Gestapo, SS og Stasi?

Ja, skriver Issandr El Amrani i den egyptiske avis Al-Masry Al-Youm, under overskriften “This is more of a revolution than you think“:

There were worse dictatorships, yes, but the problem was not simply an aging, authoritarian president, his ambitious son and his corrupt entourage. It was that, for the sake of regime preservation, a sprawling security apparatus collected information on citizens, manipulated them, cajoled and threatened them, humiliated them. State Security did not just, as its role should have been, keep tabs on possible terrorists and criminal networks. It ran Egypt on a day-to-day level, super-imposing itself onto the regular bureaucracy, acting as an intermediary.While ministries shuffled paper and red tape, state security kept tabs on people. This goes beyond the issue of torture, which it certainly practiced abundantly, or the racketeering, blackmailing and other schemes its officers carried out with impunity. What those who gained access to its offices discovered is that, much like the Ministry of Transport might keep an inventory of its buses and trains, State Security maintained an elaborate database on citizens, the threats they represented, their weaknesses, relationships and other every little detail of their lives.

This process that had its own chilling logic, reminiscent of the “banality of evil” Hannah Arendt chronicled in Nazi Germany, Andrei Almarik in the Soviet Union, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck in East Germany, or Ariel Dorfman in Pinochet’s Chile. What it boils down to is that a vast bureaucracy existed simply to perpetuate itself and those in charge. Consider the neat categorizations of the population–“Muslim Brothers”, “Communists and human rights activists,” etc.–or the recent allegation that the Ministry of Trade paid a monthly retainer of LE174,000 to its own state security watchers to get them to write positive reports.

Whatever counter-terrorism and other legitimate roles State Security played, this must have been a relatively minor part of what it did: most of its resources were dedicated to the humdrum task of keeping tabs on those Egyptians who, for whatever reason–wealth, political opinion, media influence, foreign connections–posed a potential threat to the regime.

Flickr-gruppen Piggipedia er endnu ikke fjernet, men det er givetvis kun et spørgsmål om tid. El-Hamalawy opsummerer selv situationen således:

And once again, @flickr you should b ashamed. The only people u made happy tonight r police torturers. Way to go.

Roger Waters: Tear down this apartheid wall

Selveste Roger Waters, som er kendt fra Pink Floyd og ikke mindst albummet The Wall, forklarer i dagens Guardian, hvorfor han ikke vil spille i Israel, så længe de opretholder deres apartheidlignende undertrykkelse af palæstinenserne i de besatte områder, ikke mindst meget konkret i form af den mur, de har bygget mod Vestbredden.

Waters skriver bl.a.:

Under the protection of the United Nations I visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw that day. The wall is an appalling edifice to behold. It is policed by young Israeli soldiers who treated me, a casual observer from another world, with disdainful aggression.

If it could be like that for me, a foreigner, a visitor, imagine what it must be like for the Palestinians, for the underclass, for the passbook carriers. I knew then that my conscience would not allow me to walk away from that wall, from the fate of the Palestinians I met: people whose lives are crushed daily by Israel’s occupation. In solidarity, and somewhat impotently, I wrote on their wall that day: “We don’t need no thought control.”

Sadly, in the intervening years the Israeli government has made no attempt to implement legislation that would grant rights to Israeli Arabs equal to those enjoyed by Israeli Jews, and the wall has grown, inexorably, illegally annexing more and more of the West Bank.For the people of Gaza, locked in a virtual prison behind the wall of Israel’s illegal blockade, it means another set of injustices. It means that children go to sleep hungry, many chronically malnourished. It means that fathers and mothers, unable to work in a decimated economy, have no means to support their families. It means that university students with scholarships to study abroad must watch the opportunity of a lifetime slip away because they are not allowed to travel.

In my view, the abhorrent and draconian control that Israel wields over the besieged Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem), coupled with its denial of the rights of refugees to return to their homes in Israel, demands that fair-minded people around the world support the Palestinians in their civil, nonviolent resistance.

Link: Tear down this Israeli wall

EUs frontalangreb på fagforeninger

For tiden er højrefløjen i USA stærkt optaget af at fjerne arbejdernes sidste indflydelse på løn og arbejdsvilkår. Det er finanskrisen der er undskyldningen for at slagte resterne af den amerikanske middelklasse, hvilket er ironisk eftersom finanskrisen af flere økonomer ses som en konsekvens af de store skattelettelser til de rigeste i USA.

Den samme logik spreder sig nu til EU, hvor den såkaldte europagt er i støbeskeen. Den er en konsekvens af højrefløjen og industriens tiltagende magt i EU, og der står i det første udkast at EU skal bestemme lønstigninger i de forskellige medlemslande. Dermed bliver fagforeninger frataget enhver reel indflydelse på lønudviklingen i alle Eurolande. Naturligvis ikke for ledere og børsspekulanter – de forslag er for længe siden blevet taget af bordet, nej nu er det de almindelige lønmodtagere der skal fratages enhver rettighed til at forhandle egen løn.

De konservative jubler naturligvis over forslaget. De er ganske vist officielt for den danske model hvor arbejdsmarkedets partner sætter lønningerne, men det er mest fordi det er hvad der er populært i den brede befolkning. Nu kan de via EU få slagtet fagforeningerne og sat lønningerne kraftigt ned hos alle der ikke har en lederpost.

Europagten er ganske enkelt et opgør med den danske velfærdsstat og den danske middelklasse. Man må håbe politikerne og danskerne snart får øjnene op for hvad erhvervslivets top og højrefløjen i EU er ved at indføre.

Link til frontalangrebet

Angry Arab om Søren Pind som taler til Mellemøsten-demo

Den ubegribelige opportunisme, der har fået arrangørerne af en stor demo for demokrati i Mellemøsten til at lade den nationalkonservative integrationsminister Søren Pind tale, har nu vakt opmærksomhed også uden for landets grænser.

Angry Arab News Service, der drives af den libanesisk-amerikanske forfatter og akademiker As’ad Abukhalil, skriver således:

On friday 11th, there will be a large demo in Copenhagen in favour of democracy in the Middle East. Unbelievably, Søren Pind, the current Danish minister of “integration” (foreigners) and “devolopment” (humanitarian aid, development programmes) will be among the speakers.  Mr. Pind is an unapologetic racist who has supported the Danish Hells Angels’ “Jackal Manifesto” which said Arabs “squeal when they are beaten”. I kid you not. He has also said there will be no more “integration” – foreigners must assimilate completely or leave. And he is in charge! I kid you not. I don’t know what the other speakers are thinking, but I know I’d only go for one reason: To protest again that man’s presence. I can only hope he will meet his one little slice of Tahrir on Friday. The Facebook page of the demo is here – it’s in Danish, but you can easily see his name.

Link: Soren Pind

Bedst som man troede, det ikke kunne blive værre – Søren Pind som integrationsminister

Birthe Rønn Hornbechs længe ventede afgang, efter at det blev lidt for åbenlyst, at hun ganske enkelt bevidst har syltet en række statsløse menneskers krav på statsborgerskab, markerer samtidig endnu et tryk på speederen i højredrejningen af Danmark: Hendes afløser Søren Pind erklærer prompte, at den lov, som Birthe Rønn Hornbech har overtrådt, er “åndssvag“.

Det er også Søren Pind, der har udtalt:

Jeg gider ikke høre mere snak om integration. Fri mig for det – det rigtige ord må være assimilation. Der er så rigelig kulturer, folk kan drage andensteds hen og dyrke, hvis det er det, de har lyst til

Det er også Søren Pind, der udtalte sin helt uforbeholdne støtte til Hells Angels’ “sjakalmanifest“, hvor det blandt andet hed, at arabere “piber og skriger, når de får tæv”.

En analyse viser ret hurtigt, at Søren Pind er en gennemført magtpolitiker – antiliberal, åbenlyst racistisk, i bund og grund udemokratisk og ude af stand til at anerkende andre synspunkters ret til at eksistere. Udnævnelsen af Pind rejser et grundlæggende spørgsmål: Hvorfor ikke Pia Kjærsgaard?

Svaret er desværre: Fordi det ikke ville gøre nogen forskel. “Mørke” indvandrere gør snart klogt i at have en pakket kuffert stående ved siden af sengen, som This Indonesian konkluderer:

To tell you the truth, I don’t even want to imagine what kind of new “rules” that the new minister would implement – I could already tell that it’d be worse than Birthe Rønn Hornbech’s era.

What it would feel like to be an immigrant in Denmark in the next few months or years? I have no idea. My only hope is that the election would hopefully come soon and the opposition would win the majority. Other than that, I could see myself packing my big suitcases ready.

Fredag d. 11. marts er der demonstration til støtte for revolutionerne i Mellemøsten på Rådhuspladsen i København – og arrangørerne har temmelig ubegribeligt bedt Søren Pind om at tale.

Jeg håber, at mange vil møde op; ikke for at deltage i demonstrationen, som allerede er ødelagt, men for at vise deres vrede mod det racistiske Danmark, som Søren Pind repræsenterer. Noget af det bedste, vi kan gøre for at støtte folk i Egypten, er at lære af dem og ikke finde os i de “demokratiske” regimer, som har ført krig i Irak og Afghanistan og sendt folk til Syrien og Egypten for at blive torteret.

Jeg håber, at Søren Pind vil møde et lille bitte hjørne af Tahrir-pladsen, når han taler på fredag. Ash-shab yurid isqat al-nizam – folket ønsker at vælte regimet. Jo før, jo bedre!

Michael Moore: “America is not broke”

Michael Moore taler til de strejkende arbejdere i Madison, Wisconsin.

“America is not broke. Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you’ll give up your pension, cut your wages and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash, it’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred in the greatest heist in history from the workers and the consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the über-rich!”

Via Lenin’s Tomb.

Libyen: Mission Accomplished (not)

Hvis der er én ting, oprørerne i både Tunesien, Egypten og Yemen fra starten har gjort klart, er det, at de ikke ønsker indblanding udefra. Ikke modstand, ikke støtte, ingen ting. Wael Ghonim, som vi før har citeret, er ganske repræsentativ:

Dear Western Governments, You’ve been silent for 30 years supporting the regime that was oppressing us. Please don’t get involved now.

Og Ghonim er endda med sin middelklassebaggrund og sin chefstilling hos Google blandt de mest provestlige af den egyptiske revolutions ledere (hvilket han også bliver kritiseret for). “Pro-vestlig” behøver ikke længere at være “pro vestlig indblanding”.

Oprørerne i Libyen har også hele tiden gjort opmærksom på, at de ikke ønsker udenlandsk militær støtte til opgøret mod Gaddafi, men nok humanitær hjælp. Så hvad gør man, hvis man er en hjertensgod vestlig regering, der så gerne vil gøre lidt godt for de trængte libyere?

Ja, hvad man ikke gør er at sende en deling jægersoldater ind bevæbnet til tænderne og med pas fra fire forskellige lande ind med en helikopter midt om natten. Den officielle historie er, at meningen var, at de britiske jægersoldater skulle kontakte oprørslederne for at hjælpe dem, men det blev i givet fald ret hurtigt klart, at en sådan hjælp var ganske uønsket.

The Daily Fail har for en gangs skyld en glimrende gennemgang af den uheldige “diplomatiske hændelse”, eller hvad man nu skal kalde den britiske regerings forsøg på heltedåd:

A joint SAS-MI6 team was kicked out of Libya last night after their mission to link up with rebels fighting Colonel Gaddafi turned to farce.

The eight-man unit was sent to have secret talks with opposition leaders but humiliatingly the team was detained and held by a group of farmhands.

The crack troops, armed with guns, ammunition, explosives and false passports, were mistaken for enemy spies, detained and stripped of their mobile phones and satellite communications devices

Britain faced further diplomatic humiliation as telephone calls in which officials in London begged opposition figures in Libya for their release were intercepted by Colonel Gaddafi’s security forces and broadcast on Libyan state television.

But his team of Special Forces bodyguards was forced to put down their weapons just after they had landed when confronted by armed farmers near the town of Khandra.

Whitehall officials admitted they had ‘gone quietly’ when challenged. A senior defence source denied the men were captured but said: ‘They had issues of freedom.’

Some rebels are hostile to any foreign forces entering Libya, even if they may be providing support.

One spokesman said: ‘If this is an official delegation, why come with helicopters? Why not say “We are coming, permission to land at the airport?” There are rules for these things.

Der er også et interview med en af de landarbejdere, der overmandede de såkaldte elitesoldater:

‘They all got out and they were not talking, just moving,’ he says. ‘Three or four of them were dressed all in black, so it was hard to see. But they were unloading big bags, several of them, and it looked like a lot of equipment.’

This was when Rafah, a mere 5ft7in tall, and his workmates decided they needed to act. They picked up AK-47 rifles from inside the gateroom, and made their way along the inside of the perimeter fence.

Rafah says: ‘We fired into the air, and said “hands up, don’t move”. They did as we said. It was not very difficult, we just asked them to move away from their bags to the side, and they did.’

When the farmhands peered into the bags, they found a fearsome array of military kit, which seems to have included guns, explosives, bullet-proof vests with a desert-camouflage design, satellite phones, GPS tracking devices and multiple sets of passports.

The warning shots that were fired woke the wheat and corn farm’s manager, Ahmed Albira. He remains reluctant to speak, but confirms he telephoned the headquarters of Libya’s rebel government, in Benghazi, and the reaction was immediate alarm.

With Colonel Gaddafi flying in heavily-armed mercenaries with orders to murder innocent civilians, any foreign troops on Libya’s soil are being treated with the deepest of suspicion.

Mr Albira was warned to keep them under close armed guard until back-up could arrive. While they waited, Rafah and his friends took it in turns to guard the seven SAS men and the MI6 agent, and make them breakfast. Rafah says with a smile: ‘We gave them eggs, milk and bread. It was very nice.

Er den historie overhovedet til at stå for? Nogle gange betyder: “Nej tak, vi er ikke interesserede” rent faktisk lige præcis: “Nej tak, vi er ikke interesserede.”

The Guardian har også historien:

“We don’t want new enemies, but this is no way to make contact,” said a senior member of the committee, Essam Gheriani.

“Dropping in in the dead of night with espionage equipment, recording devices, multiple weapons and passports. In Dubai the Israelis used British passports to kill that man, [Hamas commander Mahmoud] al-Mabhouh. It’s a matter of verification. At a time of revolution, suspicion is greater than trust.”

” A major embarrassment to the British government”, som The Guardian opsummerer; og det er vist endda årets underdrivelse.