Wonderful Copenhagen

The BBQ Pit
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Young Italian boy Antonio Currà 19 on an InterRail trip, his first time away from his parents, stops by Copenhagen. Wandering down the street he meets a group of Turkish immigrants whom he greets. Completely out of the blue and ridiculous pointlessly they stab him in the stomach with a long knife. Antonio not yet dead runs away down the street, panicked he stops a cap and begs for help. But before the cap driver has time to do anything the assailants catch up with Antonio and stab him several times in the back and neck. Antonio is now dead and the assailants, two cousins (16 and 17), are caught fast enough – stupidly they haven’t even bothers getting rid of the knife or their blood stained clothes.

So yesterday there is a church remembrance service wherein Antonio’s parents participated and talked. Also since everybody knows Islam is a religion of peace, the supposedly non-extremist and highly respected Moslem Imam Abdul Wahid stoning-is-a-fair-and-just-sentence-for-women-committing-adultery Petersen was invited to speak in the church – Wahid despite his name is a native Dane converted to Islam. Of course he isn’t more liberal than he thinks Sudan is currently the most ideal place on earth and he started out by saying he knew the two boys personally and there was absolutely nothing wrong with them because they were really good kids and good Moslems. Danish society on the other hand was rotten to the core and bears all responsibility for the crime because the boys hadn’t been given enough money and what was that Italian boy doing in Copenhagen anyway. Meanwhile all this was translated to Antonio’s parents, and if that is a respected imam he can go fuck a goat in Sudan. Then it’s Antonio’s father time to speak, he reads some innocent love poem written by Antonio’s sister – except he doesn’t because he is interrupted by some rotten eggs thrown at him from outside the church. Something is very fucking rotten in the state of Denmark.

During the night the flowers laid down by Antonio’s parents and others at the murder site was inundated with gasoline and torched – for the second time – and this time just in time for his parents to see it on their way home. Also the site was again spoiled by graffiti, such as “Die motherfucker” “hah hah hah” etc. Apparently nobody is so disgusting that they don’t have their fans.

And now we learn the killers are not new to violent crime. Nay far from it. One of the boys still hasn’t paid his fine for his latest tryst with violent attack. Driving down the street with his old man, he spots a place to park his car – on the pavement - for cyclist but who’s picky. Well the cyclist perhaps, three jump for their life to escape being hit by the car. A fourth is not so fast. The dad and the boy enraged by his slowness jumps out and beat and kick him to a bloddy pulp – fracturing his kneecap. For this he (the boy – the dad is apparently just scolded a bit) is hit with a heavy fine of a whopping $400. That should teach him! Well apparently not . . . . But I’m sure the around two and a half years in prison they now face for the murder will though . . . . Well perhaps not.

http://www.cphpost.dk/get/80700.html

Oh yeah. And today it’s time for the annual Gay Pride parade aka the honourable Middle Eastern Immigrant Gets To Throw Stones At Disgusting Fags Whom Allah Hates.

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My wife and I sometimes fantasize about moving to Copenhagen: we fantasize that folks there are unburdened by the racism, the virulent xenophobia, the beliigerence that plague our country today.

I appreciate your reminder, Rune, that this is no more than a fantasy.

The article you cited mentioned the murder; where are the rest of the details?

Daniel

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Wow, what a horrific story. Those poor parents.

A question, though. Just how seriously are the immigrant problems in Denmark? I ask this because you sound like a lot of people over here - people who exaggerate a few isolated incidents involving immigrants in order to suit some agenda, and meanwhile, I live in the same town and don’t understand what the hell they speak of. Know what I mean?

There’s obviously know excuse for these perpetrators, but what makes you think the Gay Pride parade will be disturbed by immigrants?

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When I saw the thread title and its author, I thought to myself “I bet this is about immigrants”. I am not kidding.

The crime sucks shit, but is it the only senseless murder in Copenhagen recently? Or do you choose it because it involves immigrants?

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How tragic. What kind of a sentence did the two cousins get?

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This was the only one I could find on a cursory google. If you google “Antonio Currà” you’ll find plenty in Danish and Italian. The comments from the church was second hand from a guy I know who was there. Here’s a random one with the graffiti and burning: http://www.bt.dk/krimi/artikel:aid=297928/

From memory, just the problems relating to crime: It depends on what you mean by serious, but a recent study concluded that 25% of all prison inmates in Danish prisons were immigrants or second generation immigrants. Compared to about 4-6% of the population this gives an overrepresentation of some 500%. But if you examine the numbers closer an even more troubling trend emerges since it appears what those groups are mainly imprisoned for is violent crimes and rapes. E.g. 40,1% of all rapes was perpetrated by the same groups, an overrepresentation by some 800% (while practically all rape victims were ethnic Danes). And since the group of immigrants and descendents include immigrants from America/Asia/Oceania which have been shown in other studies to have a considerable lower crime rate than average the immigrants from the troubling areas, Arabia and Africa, comes off worse yet. The future looks even more troubling since about 75% of all youth prisoners are immigrants or second generation immigrants (1500% overrepresentation) – and you have to do something really bad to be convicted as a minor in Denmark. I don’t know about Holland but I have seen similar studies from other European countries (France: 50% of prisoners are Arab immigrants) so I’d suspect it’s somewhat comparable – but you have a somewhat special immigrant mix so it might vary a bit.

Besides that there have been many less scientific surveys that have shown especially Danish girls are regularly troubled, threatened and harassed by gangs of immigrant youths who don’t understand or refuse to accept the Danish culture of sexual equality and freedom. This trouble with accepting womens’ role in Danish society is also attested by the fact that 42% of the women who seeks refuge in womens’ refuge centres are immigrant women.

That Immigrants from the Middle East have severe problems with crime is a well-documented fact. What to do about is what’s up for discussion. But trying to ignore it or calling people who examine it racist or whatever is just about the worst answer.

Because it was last year where it was attacked by rock throwing, but I suppose they’ve learnt from being burnt and have planned the route to avoid Muslim-dominated areas (as Nørrebro where Antonio was killed and the parade was attacked with stones last year – and I’ve lived in several times) this year – so I recon there’ll be no problems – or rather the problems will not be made visible.

There have been other and worse senseless murders, but I don’t ever remember a senseless murder which apparently enjoy widespread support even after the stupidity and brutality of the murder has been documented. It was the vandalism of the crime spot, the rotten eggs and the comments by the Imam that momentarily drove me over the edge. And the fact that (I had just learned) one of the killers had been released for his violent assault with a ridiculously small fine just three days earlier. If the court had given him a sentence that matched the crime Antonio would still be alive today – I hold the Danish judges partly responsible.

The sentence has not been metered out yet, but I think the maximum punishment is eight years. Which in reality means five-six with regular outings after four. I’ll give you forty to one these guys will be responsibility for plenty more violent crimes before croaking.

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Is there any public outrage over this?

What’s the feeling of the average “Dane in the street” as far as you can tell?

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Is this because they are minors? Or is the standard maximum sentence for murder 8 years.

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The reason why much of Europe has been free of “racism, xenophobia, etc…” is because, until very recently, its been only homogeneous groups of white-folk in Europe. Europeans have not really had to interact with non-European peoples in their daily lives until the last few years. I have heard some awful stories about the violent clashes that are going on in northern England where huge ghettos of Arab an Asian immigrants have formed. There have even been a few threads about it here.

I really think that much of this will go to show how America really is the least racist country on Earth.

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Denmark is the country where I have spent the most time besides my own. From my point of view, that of a serial tourist, and as a woman of mixed heritage I always thought of Denmark as Utopia. My husband is constantly reminding me that spending a month during summer almost every year for the last 8 years does not give me the whole picture.

One thing I did noticed: all the Danes I’ve encountered are either unconfortable by inmigration or confused at what to do to solve what to them is an issue that really needs to be addressed, one way or the other. Unfortunately, some right wing minority parties have since gained enough support to muscle their way in and pass laws restricting inmigration.

For a society so little racist that accepted gleefully that one of ther princeses married an Asian girl and so open-minded that the Justice Minister refused to ban the Danish Pedophile Association and a Muslim fundamentalist group because that would deny them their right to free speech, Danes are on for a tough ride.

I am saddened by human stupidity.

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Does Denmark deport immigrants who commit crimes (I’m not referrring to people born there, but 1st generation)?

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It has been a very long time since I have been in Denmark, but at one time I was very familiar with the culture. As a whole I found the Danes to be very open-minded and warmhearted. It felt very safe to be there.

What a sad post. I can’t imagine the Danes being prepared to deal with such mindless violence.

Immigration laws must have changed quite a bit. They were very strict at one time.

I don’t for a minute think that this behavior is typical of Arab or Turkish immigrants. Those who do such violence should quickly be given long prison terms or deported – depending on whether or not they were born in Denmark.

I live in a neighborhood of immigrants and the Arabs are quite nice.

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No words. […crying…]

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What a horrible story! I guess it shows just how different the muslim culture is …and the two (Danish liberalism and muslim conservatism) don’t mix!
I can imagine what the filthy-minded Imam would say, were he to walk along Bellevue Beach in the summertime! Women actually naked!
Perhaps, these two societies cannot mix, they are founded on fundamentally different ideas about human freedom and sexuality.

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I thought that this was a thread about smokeless tobacco. I quit 9 years ago, sometimes I feel like I could sit down with a can on Copenhagen and a spoon.

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I can’t understand the mindset of this culture that is so restrictive regarding sexuality, nudity, and especially against women. I heard a story on NPR the other day that said the only woman in the Irani Olympics delegation is a trapshooter, because that’s the only sport a woman can participate in while wearing the attire required by her national dress code–long coat and hood. I’m surprised the IOOC put up with that; they should have banned the entire delegation.

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The Saudi delegation has zero women.

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The commentators I heard said Afghanistan was banned while the Taliban was in power because they wouldn’t allow women to compete. Does the IOC insist on women having the right to participate or not?

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I no longer pretend to know the sentiments of the common Dane, since I know well that my particular political views are about as rare in Denmark as on the SDMB, but there have been a fair amount of media talk about it. As well as public vigilance at the crime spot and the letters and flowers laid down there by common Danes – now vandalised.

Yes because they’re minors. Else the common sentence for such a crime would be 12 years. A sentence is automatically reduced to 2/3 of the time and giving regular unescorted outings after half of the time.

I dunno. Certainly there are feelings of cultural superiority but I don’t think there is much racism (of the: some people are racial inferior type) in Denmark. Outside the twelve-people-big Nazi fringe, I have never heard of Arabs or Africans etc. being denigrated because of race – even from people strongly opposed to immigration and critical of Muslims. Also I think there is very little historical tradition for racial thoughts and really no way to express such in the Danish language – e.g. there is no comparable Danish words for “nigger” / etc.

The party with the strictest immigration policies (Dansk Folkeparti) is left wing, basically Social-Democratic with a bit of anti-immigrant tagged on. The other social democratic party has just affirmed they agree with DF on all immigration questions. Many liberals have expressed how they feel betrayed by the Middle Eastern immigrants. First they supported the immigrants and then they were paid back with an extremely conservative, religious, racist, misogynist, gay-phobic etc ideologue – all the basic things liberals fight against. Right-wing parties are more open to controlled immigration and to make exceptions of the immigration rules for skilled workers. Though the party most to the right in Denmark is still a fair bit to the left of the US Democratic party.

How come you come to Denmark so often (ok let me rephrase that: are you goddamn fucking out of your mind?!)? Is Stepford in the US, I think I remembered you coming from the Caribbean? Nobody gets the whole picture of anywhere, I’ve lived here for good part of my life I haven’t got the whole picture. You want a whole picture you go to my tiny native Faeroe Island – you’ll get the whole picture in about 12 days (OTOH nobody ever gets stabbed there, only been one murder the last 300 years).

Serious crimes, yes when possible.
Tonight the crime spot was once again vandalised – twice. The flowers tramped on, scattered and tried burnt. The second time the men, two from immigrant background, were spotted by some other men, also from immigrant background, who tried to stop them, but was attacked with punches and kicks and finally stabbed at with knifes.

Incidentally the Mermaid Pride Parade or whatever it’s called passed without much of disturbance, except water thrown at it from some immigrant boys. And here is our right-wing Prime Minister accepting this year’s honour price (a salmon) for saying he though homosexuals should be able to have a normal accepted church wedding (they can now only be wed by the mayor). The PM is the one in the green polo-shirt heh heh.

http://www.out-and-about.dk/paraden04.htm

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Just out of curiousity, what is it about Denmark that you dislike so much?