Only in Denmark

URL: http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Andre_sprog/English/2011/11/25/115826.htm

The number of new permanent residents in Denmark is falling dramatically, according to new figures from the Danish Immigration Service under the Ministry of Justice, writes Berlingske.

Up to 30 September this year the Immigration Service issued 525 permanent residence permits, compared to 1,796 in the same period last year. This is a decrease of more than 70 per cent. For comparison, the number of rejected applications has risen from 1,486 to 2,449.

This significant shift coincides with the point system of eligibility for permanent residence introduced in 2010 by the previous, Lib-Con, government and the Danish People’s Party.

The point system tightened such requirements as knowledge of Danish, a job and active citizenship, for example via local clubs and associations.

Peter Skaarup, deputy chairman of the Danish People’s Party, acknowledges that the main intention behind the Act was not to drastically reduce the number of new permanent residents.

“The aim was to get people to make a positive contribution to society. I think the numbers will rise again as immigrants start to fulfil the work experience requirements, for example,” he said to Berlingske.

The Liberals’ spokeswoman on integration affairs, Inger Støjberg, rejects any claim that the point system is not functioning as intended.

“The intention was that new immigrants should be able and willing to make a contribution to society, and the figures clearly show that many applicants have failed to meet the requirements,” she told Berlingske.

Although the new government’s programme includes a plan to abolish the point system, Morten Bødskov (SocDem), Minister of Justice, will not guarantee that more immigrants will be able to achieve permanent residence in future.

“When the proposed new legislation is presented next week, it will show how and when the government plans to introduce new measures,” Morgen Bødskov told Berlingske.

URL: http://www.dr.dk/P1/Netvaerket/Udsendelser/2011/11/10101629.htm

“Skrub hjem hvor du kommer fra!” (Go back to where you come from!)

It’s a phrase that increasingly affects adopted children in Denmark. Said by adults “white” Danes – and it is relatively new, reports adoption agencies.
That it may be difficult to gain access to nightclubs if your skin color is dark, is however not quite so new.

In Denmark, there is indeed a saying that skin color has no significance. That we in a way everyone is colorblind and that all are treated equally.

But is racism and discrimination, a more widespread problem in our communities than we expect? How do we tackle the more or less hidden everyday racism that apparently is among us?

And us – it applies to us all – even among the minorities, there are many stereotypes and racist beliefs.

What does the prejudices and racist ideas we have, compared to having to live together in a community?

Is the so-called multicultural society where people with different backgrounds and different skin colors live side by side in mutual respect, an opportunity or a utopia?

We all have a strip of skin 
Dorte Toft believe that everyday racism is more widespread than we like to think. She has studied blogs, and is appalled by the attacks on other people she encountered in the universe.

- But we all have a strip of skin. I can also take myself to think – oh no, why, why – when I see covered women on the street, now that we have for so many years has fought for women’s emancipation. Prejudices and myths drags us all around, and I would hope that in future we will have a society where we marry over the border so that we have cleared up some of them, says Dorte Toft.

Anxiety 
- When white adult Danes can bring themselves to ask small dark children to go back to where they came from, it’s an expression of powerlessness and some fear of the unknown, says Nicholas Henningsen. He agrees that everyday racism is thriving in our communities and even he encounters it in his work among his friends and himself.

- No one is we’re born racists and prejudiced against other people. They come from somewhere. I think it’s something cultural, mixed with psychological mechanisms that powerlessness and fear of the unknown, says Nicholas Henningsen.

He also believes that in our communities is a fear of contact and a “touchy” – for what can be said without being called racist?

- A variety may well be an idiot, but it is obviously problematic if some people think he is an idiot because he is black, says Nicholas Henningsen.

Danish values ​​in a multicultural society 
The first January 2010, there were 542,738 immigrants and descendants of immigrants in Denmark.

This corresponds to approximately 10 percent of the Danish population. As the figure rises Denmark will move further and further towards a multicultural society. Periodically, the paper discusses whether it is possible that so many cultures can work together?
Yes, says Ann Elisabeth Knudsen. But she believes that it has to be based on so-called Danish values.

- I think it’s okay to say that if you want to live in Denmark, there are some rules to follow and an effort to do because we live in this country that has certain values ​​and a certain culture, says Ann Elisabeth Knudsen.

URL: http://politiken.dk/debat/ECE1455702/thorning-gavner-danmarks-omdoemme/

66 foreign journalists asses Denmark’s reputation abroad

Ten years after ‘System change 2001′ the journalists who write about Denmark in foreign media are in no doubt: Denmark’s reputation dropped sharply from 2001 to 2011 under VKO.

But with the new government is facing arrow in the opposite direction.

It appears from a policy survey of 66 foreign journalists from 28 countries. We bring this figure from the survey and interview with two reporters.

Denmark’s image gets better

Elmar Jung is a German freelance journalist for the Financial Times Deutschland.

“During the previous government people have had the feeling that Denmark has never been fully respond to the EU project. We have the Danish population’s brains with the EU, but not their hearts. It is understood that a Danish membership is good for the Danish economy, but the Danes are not entirely convinced of their European identity. They see themselves as Danes – before they are Europeans.

Furthermore, the Danish population’s reputation in Germany was marked by the immigration policy that VKO introduced, which Denmark has repeatedly been lashed by the EU. It has over the last decade allowed many Germans paint a picture of Denmark as a navel-gazing country with a very tight immigration policy, where the Danish People’s Party had great influence.

We experienced it when the government introduced border control, which gave an additional notch in the Danish reputation. Therefore, we can already tell that there are changes with the new government, where the frontier boom demolished and some tightening rolled back. It will change much in the way the EU perceives Denmark on. In addition, Helle Thorning a much more European and international profile than Lars Lokke Rasmussen.Her background in Brussels and British husband also speaks of a more international politician who will stand well against the other member states up to the Danish EU Presidency. “

Denmark went off the rails

Monika Wallgren is a freelance journalist from Sweden.

“It has gone off the rails in Denmark over the past ten years. It was not always so. There was almost daily negative story about immigrants in the Danish media during VKO government. I think it went very hard for everything that was not Danish, in newspapers, television and radio. Both general and in public debate.

The Danes forget so often that the policy will be conducted at Christiansborg, the course will be covered in our respective countries, which then shapes their image of Denmark. Denmark’s image abroad has been much damage during the civil government, which has repeatedly criticized and exhibited Muslims living here in the press, which they have noticed in Sweden.

It has been a very inhuman policy, and the media have of course reported constraints to home countries, so that Denmark’s reputation has been great battle for the last ten years. I am optimistic about Helle Thorning, because you can not really tighten more to foreigners than VKO already done. It can not go more wrong than it already is now. “

Survey:

Politiken Research has asked 66 foreign journalists on Denmark’s reputation.

During VKO alliance 2001-2011 changed Denmark’s reputation in the country, I write, tell it …

Much worse / worse: 38

Much better / better: 1

Same: 23

Do not know: 4

—

What do you expect will happen with Denmark’s general reputation, with the new Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt? I expect that Denmark’s reputation is …

Much better / better: 44

Much worse / worse: 0

The same: 13

Do not know: 9

—

Do you agree or disagree with the following statements: “In the country where my stories are published, the Danes were perceived as more xenophobic (xenophobic, ed.) During VKO alliance 2001-2011 ‘.

Agree: 52

Disagree: 8

Neither / nor: 6

—

What do you expect will happen with Denmark’s general reputation in relation to xenophobia under the newly elected Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt? It will be …

Much better / better: 48

Much worse / worse: 2

The same: 9

Do not know: 7

URL: http://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/samfund/article1656706.ece

Legeland’s director refuses all customers who look like Somalians

Legelandet.dk – a playground place in Aarhus – advertises the place with inflatable toys, golf and games, but you will be denied entrance if you’re from Somalia.

‘To all Somalian families, children and adults. It’s regrettable that we have to refuse your entrance in Legelandet.dk” The warning sign was written in big alphabets on the entrance door to Legeland.dk

- We were very shocked when we saw the sign on the entrance, said Mette Bonde to ekstrabladet.dk.

- I don’t want to take my children to a place where people are looked down upon, said Mette further.

She and her family gets free entrance to Legelandet.dk in Brabrand because advertisement for the playground was put on her car.

But it is over now.

- We will not represent that, she said.

Legeland’s director to customers: “It’s never one of you”

Thomas Vestergaard, along with his two brothers, owns legelandet.dk, also the one in Vejle. They have decided to deny customers based on ethnicity.

Last Sunday on November 6, there were around 900 guests celebrating holiday in Legelandet.dk and most of them were Somalians, according to Thomas Vestergaard. The celebration ended in a fight where police and ambulances had to be called.

-  I have refused around 15 people in the last few days. They denied that they had anything to dow ith the fight, said Thomas Vestergaard to ekstrabladet.dk but they were still denied entrance to the playground.

- ’It’s never one of you’, Thomas Vestergaard cited his own answer to rejected guests who couldn’t understand why they were denied entrance.

Don’t you think it’s discriminating?

- If anyone thinks that way, there’s nothing I can do about it. I have to protect my business and I don’t want anyone destroys it, said Vestergaard, who said that the Sunday fight had cost him around 30.-40.000 kroner.

- I’m not a racist, and if they were Danes, I would do the same, he said.

Want to find the guilty ones.
Legelandet’s management says that the warning sends an important signal

- Our guests would see that wrong actions brings consequences.

In order to solve the problem, he is doing dialog with Somalian Organization.

- They are also tired of it. I would like to take off the sign if they come to me with those who were responsible for the fight and the damages.

URL: http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Andre_sprog/English/2011/11/11/11124534.htm

It has become easier to persuade engineers, doctors and other highly educated foreigners to come to Denmark to work. Convincing them to stay, however, is proving difficult, according to the Danish National Centre for Social Research (SFI), in a report just released.

One reason for leaving again is the high Danish taxes, but the biggest problems arise if the family is unhappy, the researcher behind the report, Frederik Thuesen, says to DR News.

Job for spouse
“A highly educated expatriate often also has a highly educated spouse. The spouse naturally also wants a job that matches his or her qualifications, and that can be difficult to ensure,” says Frederik Thuesen.

The City of Copenhagen is aware of the importance of the social aspects in relation to retaining foreign workers.

Foreigners can visit the City of Copenhagen’s Citizen Services twice a week, where they can get help from the tax authorities, Citizen Services and other bodies.

Social relations are important
They can also obtain information about Danish clubs and associations, cultural life and language courses.

Copenhagen has the philosophy that foreigners that become integrated in society are more likely to stay.

“Lack of contact is often the reason that people leave again,” says project manager Trine Marie Ingeberg.

The 25-year-old Polish PhD student Jakub Modrzynski agrees, adding that it is very difficult to develop close relationships with Danes. And that is necessary if he is to stay in Denmark.

URL: http://cphpost.dk/component/content/52499.html?task=view

Venstre would deny citizenship to stateless youth, based on confidential information

Overt political calls to defy international agreements on human rights used to be the domain of the right-wingDansk Folkeparti. But yesterday, the country’s largest party, the centre-right opposition leaders Venstre, came forward with just such a proposal.

Venstre (V) sent the justice minister, Morten Bødskov, a formal letter requesting that the government deny citizenship to an individual who is otherwise guaranteed citizenship under two UN conventions regarding the rights of stateless youth. Denmark has signed both conventions. Under the conventions, stateless youth are entitled to citizenship in the country in which they were born as long as they have not been convicted of a serious crime.

The individual in question was born in Denmark to refugee parents and has not been convicted of a serious crime. Nevertheless, Venstre says he should not be granted citizenship, because the domestic security agency PET claims he is a threat to national security.

PET has not shared how or why the young man is a national threat – that information so far remains classified. Nor has the man been charged with a crime. Not even the Venstre politicians who say he should be denied citizenship know the reasons for PET’s warning.

Twice every year a list of foreigners who are eligible for citizenship is presented to parliament’s citizenship council for approval. On that list this autumn is the person PET has identified as a threat to national security.

“We say ‘no’ to the government’s motion to give citizenship to a person whom PET considers dangerous to national security,” Venstre legal spokesperson Karsten Lauritzen told Berlingske newspaper.

“Under normal circumstances, the citizenship committee would be in full agreement about rejecting this person, but the government is putting the UN convention over the safety of Danish citizens. We in Venstre don’t want to do that. On this question, we’re ready to break with UN convention,” Lauritzen added.

Lauritzen admitted that he had no idea what PET was accusing the man of.

From a human rights perspective, the proposal is questionable, said Eva Ersbøll, a senior researcher at the human rights organisation Institut for Menneskerettigheder (IMF).

“We don’t even know whether the person has actually done anything, or whether he is being investigated because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Ersbøll told Berlingske.

She added that what Venstre was asking the government to do was to break with the UN convention on stateless people’s rights.

Back in March, when Venstre still led the government instead of the opposition, a scandal involving precisely the same UN convention took down the then-immigration minister, Birthe Rønne Hornbech (V).

Hornbech was fired after it was learned that she had instructed Immigration Ministry staff to ignore the UN convention and reject the citizenship applications of stateless youth born in Denmark. Hornbech did not inform parliament of her actions, nor of the more than 400 citizenship rejections her ministry handed out to stateless youth covered by the convention over a two-year period.

When Venstre leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen – who was prime minister at the time – fired Hornbech over the scandal, he called it a “serious case” of breach of human rights.

Dansk Folkeparti (DF), which voted with the previous government, complained when the Immigration Ministry began automatically awarding citizenships to the over 400 stateless youth that had inappropriately been rejected earlier. In the spring, DF therefore proposed a bill to withdraw Denmark’s signature from the UN conventions. Venstre voted against that bill then.

Rasmussen declined to comment this week on why his party was now calling on the new government to defy the UN convention.

When the Socialdemokraterne-Radikale-Socialistisk Folkeparti coalition government assumed power last month, they dissolved the Immigration Ministry, transferring its areas of jurisdiction to the Justice Ministry and the Social Affairs Ministry.

Zenia Stampe, the Radikale citizenship spokesperson and the co-chair of parliament’s citizenship council, called Venstre’s move this week to defy the international convention “outrageous”.

“Otherwise, what do the conventions mean at the end of the day? It’s our position that they lie above Danish law. If we aren’t going to bother with them, then we might as well pull out of them,” Stampe told Berlingske.

Bødskov said that the government “naturally intends to live up to the international conventions that Denmark has endorsed” – despite PET’s warning.

URL: http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Andre_sprog/English/2011/11/10/123610.htm

The government intends to remove the financial bonus paid out to municipalities that convince immigrants to go home. This proposal will be tabled in a new bill later this month.

Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten reports that this will also remove the municipalities’ duty to inform poorly integrated immigrants of their options via the repatriation scheme.

Still support for repatriation
Today an immigrant participating in the repatriation scheme is given a cash amount of nearly DKK 120,000 to establish a life in the country of origin. Expenses for airline tickets, removal, medicine etc. are also covered.

The government does not intend to change this part of the scheme, but the bonus paid out to the municipalities of DKK 25,000 per repatriated person is to be scrapped.

“We are removing it because it sends the wrong signal that these people do not belong here. The new government doesn’t want to send that signal,” says Minister for Social Affairs and Integration Karen Hækkerup (SocDem) to Information.

She adds that paying out a bonus based on how many people the municipalities convince to leave Denmark also sends an unfortunate signal.

Libs: Damaging to integration
According to the Liberals’ integration spokesperson Inger Støjberg, “the government is precision bombing those elements of the integration policy that work”.

“This means that immigrants who simply can’t become integrated will not be encouraged to leave the country,” says Inger Støjberg to Jyllands-Posten.

URL: http://www.metroxpress.dk/nyheder/voldelig-far-far-fuld-forldremyndighed/KObkkb!ubUQlFxkuDziw/

An American woman with work permit is fighting to not to let her daughters live with their father because he is abusive both to her and the children. The city court has given him full custody instead.

The seven year old girl said in the video recorded by the police on how she had more headaches than normal and that she wanted to throw up. According to the report from the ER, she had concussion. The girl said that the father hit her in the head. With a book. The father explained that the girl was running into the father’s outstretched hand.

According to the girl, the black eye was the cause of her brushing her teeth to slow and the little sister said that the father stepped on her toes and pinched her when she was too slow to get ready in the morning.

She also said that she was in the bathtub with the father and should play with his penis.

The parents, the American mother and the Danish father, separated from each other in spring 2010 after she could no longer endure years of verbal and physical violence. She met him in the States and they had children together when she could work here. They had lived together for four years in Denmark.

After leaving him, she lived at the crisis center for a couple of months before she found a place in the same town where her ex lives.

Divorce and custody trial were set in course. In the beginning, the statsforvaltning decided that the girls should stay with the mother until the final decision.

During interview with the children – supervised by social service officer – both children expressed that they would rather stay with their mother and that they were scared when they were at their father’s place, just like they explained that they were abused physically whenever they were at their father’s

The father wants full custody for the children and on October 13, the judge in the city court fulfilled his wish. The tape from the police interrogation with the children were not used in the trial.

According to the decision, it says that the father could give more stability for the children although he is too much fixated on rules.

Not long after the court has decided to give full custody to the children, he disappeared with the children for more than a week although the case was appealed to a higher court and according to the Statsforvaltning, the daughters should stay with the mother again during the process.

The daughters are now going to a privat school and stay at their mother’s. They stay with their father five days in every 9th day. The mother agrees to the joint custody as long as the father could control his temper when he’s with the children.

The mother has work permit until 2014 and has no plan to leave the country. The appeal case will start in the spring, according to the plan.

URL: http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Andre_sprog/English/2011/10/28/113551.htm

The government has declared that it will not allow any more children to become entangled in the family reunification rules and be prevented from living in Denmark with their mother or father.
However, 12-year-old Sirapat from Thailand has not had any benefit from this decision. Yesterday, the Ministry of Justice refused permission for the boy to live with his mother in Denmark.

The boy’s mother, Amporn Kamminsen, was not immediately able to call her son yesterday to inform him of the news. Seven months ago, the boy had to travel back to Thailand alone after the first time he was refused permission to live with his mother.

Moved from place to place
Since then, he has lived with his mother’s cousin, then with a sister, and for the past couple of months with an elderly teacher in Bangkok, where he is now affected by the increasing floods.
Sirapat’s father in Thailand refuses to have any contact with the boy.