On 3 June 2021 the Danish Parliament approved amendments to the Danish Aliens Act.
The amendments will enter into effect if Denmark secures a formal agreement with a third country. This could see the forcible transfer of asylum-seekers and the abdication of Denmark’s responsibility for the asylum process and for protecting vulnerable refugees.
UNHCR strongly opposes efforts that seek to externalize or outsource asylum and international protection obligations to other countries. Such efforts to evade responsibility run counter to the letter and spirit of the 1951 Refugee Convention, as well as the Global Compact on Refugees where countries agreed to share more equitably the responsibility for refugee protection.
Already today nearly 90% percent of the world’s refugees live in developing or the least developed countries that – despite their limited resources – step up and meet their international legal obligations and responsibilities.
UNHCR has raised repeatedly its concerns and objections to the Danish government’s proposal and has offered advice and pragmatic alternatives.
UNHCR will continue to engage in discussions with Denmark, which remains a valuable and long-standing partner to UNHCR, in order to find practical ways forward that ensure the confidence of the Danish people and uphold Denmark’s international commitments.
The Danish government should renew and strengthen efforts to secure the immediate and unconditional release of prominent human rights defender and dual Danish-Bahraini citizen, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, 108 international and Bahraini rights groups said on 24 January 2021 in a joint letter to Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark. As reported by the AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA).
The human rights defender, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, 59, is serving a life sentence in Bahrain’s Jaw prison for his peaceful political and human rights activities, in violation of his right to freedom of expression. [see also https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/abdulhadi-al-khawaja/]
“There is no doubt that the conviction and sentencing of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja was unfair and oppressive and tried to silence his prominent voice demanding the rights of Bahrainis,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Al-Khawaja should not have had to spend a single minute behind bars, yet he has been unjustly detained for almost a decade.”
On 21 October 2020 assassinated Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was posthumously awarded the 2020 Allard Prize for International Integrity, a prestigious global prize for people who demonstrate exceptional leadership and courage in protecting human rights. For more on this prize see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/award/1f084460-a5ea-11e7-8132-af7bdbf76e65
Caruana Galizia was co-awarded the prize last night along with Howard Wilkinson, the man who blew the whistle on the Danske Bank money laundering scandal.
Both Caruana Galizia and Wilkinson were awarded $50,000 prizes and the assassinated journalist’s family has dedicated their prize money to the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation.
Andrew Caruana Galizia virtually accepts the prize on his late mother’s behalf
Virtually accepting the prize on his late mother’s behalf, Andrew Caruana Galizia said that such prizes shouldn’t be viewed as frivolous but crucial in ensuring the fight for justice lives on. “We know there’s a connection between remembering and justice. If we forget the people who were murdered, the human rights activists and journalists who lost their lives fighting for our right to know, to live in a democracy and enjoy other rights, then no one will remember to fight for justice.”
Co-winner Howard Wilkinson blew the whistle on the largest money laundering scheme in history, worth at least $230 billion, while acting as the head of Danske Bank’s trading unit in the Baltics. On September 19, 2018, news broke of the money laundering scheme that moved rubles out of Russia, converted them to dollars at the Estonian branch of Danske Bank, and then moved the dollars to New York with the assistance of three correspondent banks (Bank of America, J.P Morgan, and Deutsche Bank). Danske Bank admitted all of its internal controls designed to prevent money laundering had failed. The bank revealed that the scheme had been reported to the bank’s highest levels by a whistleblower over four years before. The whistleblower’s identity was required to be secret. But it took only days for Wilkinson’s name to leak out.
The Allard Prize website states: “Despite the considerable risk to himself and his family, Wilkinson testified before the European Parliament and advocated for greater protections for whistleblowers and a new regulation model that encourages greater transparency. The scandal led to numerous investigations and criminal charges across Europe, Danske’s CEO’s resignation, and Danske’s Estonian branch’s closing.”
When accepting the award, Wilkinson said, “Whistleblowers are the most loyal employees at all. The whole point of whistleblowers is to make things better.”
Wilkinson was profiled by Whistleblower News Network as its “Whistleblower of the Week” weekly feature on October 19.
Human rights defender Brian Dooley and Danish MP Rasmussen were not only refused entry into Bahrain but kept in the airport without a passport, reports the Irish Independent on 4 April 2018.
Brian Dooley has been held alongside Danish MP Lars Aslan Rasmussen for more than 12 hours in Bahrain International Airport after they travelled there to visit jailed Bahraini-Danish human rights defender Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a prominent pro-democracy campaigner in Bahrain, who founded the Gulf Centre for Human Rights and worked for the Dublin-based group Front Line Defenders. He received a life sentence in April 2011 for charges of terrorism and attempting to overthrow the government.
Brian Dooley in Bahrain alongside Danish MP Lars Aslan Rasmussen (L)
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The banquet hall at the National Museum in Copenhagen played host to the presentation of the PL Foundation Freedom Award on 12 December 2016, an annual prize given in honour of a Danish resistance fighter that recognises the exercise of human rights in an extraordinary manner. The winner was Breaking the Silence, an Israeli organisation that collects and shares testimonies (some anonymous) from soldiers who have served in the West Bank and Gaza – over a thousand at the last count. “Breaking the Silence shows great personal courage to talk about their own experience in the West Bank” commented the PL Foundation, named after the Danish resistance fighter Poul Lauritzen. Previous winners include Turkish publisher Ragıp Zarakolu and Turkish playwright Ali Tuygan. One of Breaking the Silence’s co founders, Yehuda Shaul, 33, along with spokesperson Achiya Schatz, appeared in person to receive the award, which included a prize of 100,000 kroner, from Poul Søgaard, a leading judge at the Supreme Court.
Founded in 2004, Breaking the Silence initially published the testimonies of the soldiers in an art gallery in Tel Aviv. Today, it publishes them in booklets and articles and shares them in lectures and guided tours of cities like Hebron in the West Bank.
Achiya Schatz in front of the testimonies at the Breaking the Silence office in Tel Aviv. (all photos: Cornelia Mikaelsson)
Banned by the Israeli authorities from speaking to soldiers or schoolchildren, Breaking the Silence has been accused of spreading mistruths and of betraying the Israeli military. Threats are an occupational hazard. “To remain silent is no longer an option,” explains Achiya Schatz, 31, who did his national service in the Israeli army from 2005-08. Schatz recalls that many of his missions to search Palestinian residences were pointless – commanding officers would throw away the gathered intelligence without reading it. “After completing my service I got time to think. One question led to another and all of a sudden I asked myself: how can you ever occupy morally?”
Over half of Breaking the Silence’s funding comes from abroad (7 million kroner in 2014 alone) and one of its biggest supporters is Danish – Dan Church Aid, the humanitarian NGO. And this has led to extra suspicion in Israel. Earlier this year, the Israeli government passed a transparency bill forcing NGOs that receive more than half of their funding from foreign sources to declare them openly. Those who voted for the bill claimed that it served a democratic purpose. Critics, however, argued that it only was an attempt to target NGOs critical of Israel’s governmental policies. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu wrote a statement on his Facebook page, claiming that the bill aims to “prevent an absurd situation, in which foreign states meddle in Israel’s internal affairs by funding NGOs, without the Israeli public being aware of it”. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2016/01/05/michael-sfardjan-israels-human-rights-activists-arent-traitors/]
Ido Even-Paz, one of the guides on the Breaking the Silence tour of Hebron
On December 10 Turkish publisher, human rights defender Ragip Zarakolu was awarded PL (Paul Lauritzen) Foundation Peace Prize for his extraordinary efforts in the areas of freedom of thought and expression. Zarakolu is an author of a number of works on Armenian Genocide. The prize amounting to 100.000 Danish krone is awarded to organizations and people who struggle for democracy without resorting to violence within the scope of United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. [Ragıp Zarakolu was born in 1948 on Heybeliada, in İstanbul. He started publishing with his wife, Ayşe Nur Zarakolu in 1977. He never abandoned his struggle for “popularizing respect for different ideas and cultures in Turkey” despite pressures, his books being seized or destroyed, heavy fines and being sent to prison. Zarakolu serving as the President of Publishers’ Union of Turkey Committee of Free Publishing has worked on Kurdish question and condition of minorities in Turkey. Zarakolu lastly was arrested together with his son Deniz Zarakolu within the scope of Group of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK) case in 2011. He remained in prison until April 2012. (EA/TK)]
President of the PL Foundation Paul Sogaard noted in his opening remarks that Ragip Zarakolu was chosen as a recipient of the prize for his long struggle for the freedom of thought and human rights, as well as for his efforts targeted at raising awareness about the Armenian Genocide committed at the hands of the Ottoman Empire 100 years ago. Zarakolu said, in turn, he dedicates the award to the memory of Hrant Dink, the slain editor-in-chief of the Turkish Armenian Agos weekly, and Armenian linguist and architect Sevan Nisanyan, who’s currently serving a term in Turkey. He urged to do the utmost to speak out against and condemn the radical intolerance in Turkey and contribute to the release of detained intellectuals.
On 1 September Sputnik reports under the title “Moscow slammed Vilnius for persecution of human rights defenders” how Moscow is concerned about Lithuanian authorities’ recent decision to deport three rights activists. “Lithuanian authorities handed over decisions to three well-known Latvian human rights activists that they had to leave the country within 24 hours, with two being banned entry for five years,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “This shameless move by Lithuanian authorities, which can only be interpreted as persecution of human right defenders, causes serious concern.”
Then I remembered an old case from a Danish newspaper of 21 May 2015 which read: “Russia moves to deport Danish activist group“.
It said that 3 members of a Danish human rights group faced possible deportation after being accused of breaching immigration rules. The Danish, German and Latvian citizens were participating in a workshop jointly organized by the prominent Russian rights group Committee Against Torture and the Danish Institute Against Torture (Dignity). Migration officials had stormed the hotel venue in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia’s fifth-biggest city, and demanded that the foreigners accompany them for questioning. A court in Nizhny ruled that German lecturer Uwe Harlacher, a psychologist, had entered the country with the wrong visa, said the head of the Committee Against Torture, Igor Kalyapin.
[Last year, four American students were deported after attending a leadership conference. Russian officials said they had tourist visas but were not engaged in tourism.]
Not enough detail in any of these cases to judge definitely who is right and wrong, but interesting to note how authorities like to play with rules which suit them.
The DIGNITY Documentation Centre and Library near Copenhagen holds the world’s most extensive collection of published documents on torture and related subjects with more than 40,000 items, ranging from books and articles to journals and images. See:
launches its new 
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 