News out of Denmark....... Is something rotten in Kobenhavn?


Freedom of _Expression versus protection of minorities

In any society, Freedom of _Expression is a fundament on which a democratic system is built. It gives the little man, a possibility to raise a voice against tyranny and state oppression, demand the rights and not to be afraid of the power elite.

But as it is with every concept, Freedom of _Expression can also be used to insult, oppress and create conflicts between various groups. Furthermore, it is sometimes misused to push the unfair opinions of the majority over minorities.

And unfortunately, this is exactly, what is happening in Denmark for the last few decades. Seen through today’s practices,the noble concept of Freedom of _Expression, , is tantamount to, freedom for the journalists, editors and other powerful racist and Islamophobic groups to ridicule, ethnic minorities, their cultures and their faiths.

Sadly enough, Denmark is also one of the very few countries in the Western World where Freedom of _Expression takes precedence over human rights of ethnic minorities. This priority is not only liberally taken advantage of, by the Danish media – often intentionally - but has become an accepted norm in the wider society. The judicial system, the politicians and the intellectuals guard this man made principle with great vigour. The ensuing result is a stream of racist statements from politicians of established parties, anti -Islam rhetoric on web sites, public debates degrading minorities, accusing media discussions and outright blasphemic utterances on daily basis.

The latest example of this sad situation is that the largest newspaper in Denmark- Jyllands Posten - commissioned the Danish cartoonists to draw cartoons of Prophet Mohammed. 12 very derogatory and insulting cartoons, depicting the Prophet as a terrorist and women exploiter were published in the newspaper on 30th September 2005. This uncalled for provocation has poisoned the atmosphere and created a conflict between Denmark and the Islamic World and has even reached the United Nations.

It is frustrating to hear and read the arguments being put forward by the newspaper and its allies. The newspaper owner in a TV interview admitted that their provocation was meant to help the progressive Muslims against the more militant ones. This is a funny argument, because if J.Posten really wanted to help the so-called moderate Muslims, then the last thing they should have done is to insult the religion of Islam and its Prophet. There is not even a little understanding of, how Muslim communities are hurt.

Since in our media monitoring work for the last many years, we have never come across degrading treatment of any other religion, we wish to ask the Danish media in general and newspaper Jyllands Posten in particular; Why pick on Islam? We know that the Danish or any European media would not dare to make fun of sensitive issues in other religions. Can one imagine, J.Posten asking Danish cartoonists to draw derogatory cartoons of Pope, Dalai Lama, Hindu deities or make fun of the Holocaust horrors?

Freedom of _Expression is and should be very important to all of us. It must be protected but it has never been unlimited. It is regulated by the law and most important of all, by the moral responsibility of the majority society that must protect the minorities from attacks – physical, verbal, or written. All we are asking is that the politicians must take a stand against the misuse of Freedom of _Expression and refrain from supporting the injustices.

Bashy Quraishy

Chief Editor – Media Watch. Copenhagen. Denmark

Bashy@mail.dk. www. bashy. dk


AND HERE, AN APPEAL FOR HELP


Dear friend

For years, we have witnessed the rising tide of Islamophobia in the West and especially in Denmark and how media misuses the concept of freedom of _expression to insult and degrade not only the Muslim Communities but to a larger degree the religion of Islam, its holy book, Quran and even Prophet Mohammad.
Danish politicians, the media and the man in the street has no qualm in calling Islam - Nazist, Terrorist, Fascist and many other uncomfortable names. Even Parliament's podium is being used for such attacks.

But the largest daily newspaper, Jyllands Posten went one step further in September 2005 when it instigated the commissioning of cartoons of Prophet Mohammad. 12 well known artists drew very insulting sketches of the Prophet and the newspaper published these on 30th September.

The Muslim communities in Denmark peacefully protested against this uncalled for provocation and many ambassadors from Muslim countries requested a meeting with the Prime Minster of Denmark on this issue. The response of the Danish authorities and the media has been an arrogant defense of the newspaper and its right to insult whom ever it pleases. Muslim communities were politely told to shut up and accept the treatment they are given.

Now the matter has been taken up in Al - Azhar University, United Nation's Commission for Human Rights and Organisation of Islamic conference. No one knows what the consequences of this provocation will be for the future of minorities in Denmark.
We are afraid that this Islamophobic atmosphere in Denmark is damaging the inter-ethnic and inter-cultural relationships in the society. Since, we find ourselves helpless in this respect, we have no other recourse but to appeal to the international opinion. In this connection, we have formulated a small cry of help, which we are sending to you.

Please help us to circulate it as widely as possible, to your media and authorities. It would be even greater help if you write to the Prime Minster of Denmark and petition him. We are not asking him to curtail the Freedom of _Expression, but show support for the aggrieved part. After all, he is our Prime Minster too.

His e-mail is; stm@stm.dk

Thank you for your consideration
Kind regards

Bashy Quraishy

Member Board of Trustees - More colour in the media - Holland

Member Board of Trustees - Centro de Estudos Multiculturais - Portugal

Chairman - Ethnic Debate Forum -Denmark

Mobile: 0045 - 40 15 47 71 Home phone and Fax: 0045-38 88 19 77
www.bashy.dk

ANOTHER Few Words From Colleagues In Germany

This comes from our colleagues in Berlin who represent a cross section of Germany's small but, growing, Black community there. They like many of us are an invisible community. Here on the I-A-N Blog site, and on the I-A-N web page, will be given greater voice to the International Community. Here is an issue, in light of what took place recently in France with the rash of racial violence, that is important to us all.

European Soccer's Racism Problem

Inter's Adriano (r.) tries to keep Zoro from walking off in protest


After racist chants in stadiums in Italy and Spain last weekend brought African players to tears, the European Union and soccer's governing body are planning to get tougher on soccer's major problem.

On soccer pitches across Belgium this weekend, players will wear a black and white stripe on their faces. In Italy, an anti-racism banner will be unveiled before the opening whistle of every top Italian league and Italian Cup match.

The measures, organized by the Belgian and Italian leagues, follow another shameful weekend of racism in European soccer. On Sunday, Messina's Ivory Coast defender Marc Zoro threatened to walk off the field after fans of his team's opponents, Inter Milan, repeatedly hurled racial epithets at him. Two Espanyol of Barcelona players, the Cameroon goalkeeper Carlos Kameni and the Brazilian midfielder Fredson, were subjected to racist chants in Madrid by fans of opponent Atletico Madrid.

From fines to bans

Though hardly a new problem in the Spanish and Italian leagues, both European soccer's governing body as well as the European Parliament have promised to throw the book at violators and disperse the dark cloud hanging over European soccer.

"We are prepared to implement the necessary sanctions, from fines and closure of stadiums, and even to not allow teams to participate in competitions," said Per Ravn Omdal, the vice president of UEFA.

EU legislators are proposing a law that could stop games in which players are racially abused as well as punish the guilty clubs and national federations. Persistent offenders will be permanently removed from competition, should the new law go through. If more than half of the EU parliament signs the declaration, it will become a resolution with the possibility of becoming law.

Italy's anti-racism shirts have done little to stop the problem

Player, in tears, tries to stop match

The strong measures came about after the Zoro incident created headlines around the world. In the 66th minute of his team's match against Inter Milan, he picked up the ball, planning to hand it to the fourth referee official as he walked off the pitch. Inter Milan stars Adriano, a Brazilian, and Nigerian forward Obafemi Martins, intervened. They pleaded with their fans to stop and convinced Zoro, who was in tears, to continue playing.

Omdal would like to see referees take more initiative in suspending or stopping matches marred by racist chants or taunts.

"Referees will be given the necessary power to abandon or cancel matches if necessary," he said. "We need referees and match officials to be tough on this issue. If they have been asleep then they need to wake up."

Fascist fans wave flags ahead of a game of Rome's Lazio club

Soccer's racism problem nothing new

European soccer has paid particularly close attention to racism in recent years after several high-profile incidents.

World governing body FIFA fined the Spanish Football Association 100,000 Swiss francs ($87,340) after Spanish fans directed racist chants at black English players Thierry Henry and Shaun Wright-Phillips during a match between the two national teams in November 2004. The Spanish FA fined national team coach Luis Aragones 3,000 euros for racist remarks he made about Henry to his team, a figure that was slammed by anti-racism campaigners as far too low.

Serbian striker Nenad Jestrovic became the first player to be dismissed in a Champion's League match for alleged racist comments while his side, Anderlecht of Belgium, played against Liverpool earlier in the month. UEFA banned him for three matches.

DW staff (dre)
LINK: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1798795,00.html


"Auch habe ich Wächter über euch gesetzt:
Achtet auf den Hall der Posaune!
Aber sie sprechen: Wir wollen's nicht tun!" Jeremia 6:17
www.kingdomofyah.de

Welcome to the I-A-N Blog!

The International Networks (I-A-N) project deals with untapped resources in the media capital of the world. Those untapped resources offer the potential for the unleashing of an enormous talent within the communications field and to make the media industry in New York City unique in the world market. The United Nations is already in a city that is the united nations, a culturally rich and diverse society that is as yet not communicating with itself in a way that truly enhances and combines all the elements of media, community and academis. All of these things are already here but nobody, no organisation has gone about making those community connections. This is the promise of I-A-N to build a truly unique and new culture of reporting

And so with this, the INTERNATIONAL ACCESS NETWORKS / I-A-N, Inc. web site and blog is officially launched with one of our key and signature projects...... It is the CD known as REMEMBER 9 / 11 a look back and look forward and a look at what is happening now. We will be getting comments and contributions and observations from around the world. One such area we will be looking at is the recent civil unrest and economic questions touching Western Europe, and what it will mean for that continent in the years ahead. We open this with the following comments from one of our scores of contributors, courtesy The New York-based newspaper known as THE BLACK STAR NEWS...... Here it goes:

Commentary From the Black Star News (New York) November 18, 2005

By Ocaya p Ocure

Stockholm, Sweden - Yes, France is on fire but ask yourself why? There is racism and complete neglect of Africans in France. One needs not be a Rocket Scientist to know the reason why Europe has become a center of racism. Recently, we saw in Spain, whereby refugees are packed in trucks and taken to Morocco whereby they are transferred and left in the desert towards Tunisia or Algeria. Now France has invoked the 1955 French Colonial Law to govern the Paris city suburbs where most of the non-white French citizens reside. What an irony? In England Tony Blair is asking for powers to allow government to detain Muslims for 90 days without any charge simply because they might be suspected of belonging to “anti-people” groups.

One can’t understand what Blair means by belonging to anti-people groups,” or how he can negotiate with repressive regimes to take these refugees back to their own home countries whereby they risk being arrested or killed on arrival.

Yes, there are some refugees who might have done wrong on British soil such as the perpetrators of the July 11^th bombings. But I think their children or families have not committed any crime against the people of Britain. Arresting somebody as a suspect and putting that person behind bars incommunicado for 90 days does not auger well on democratic norms of rule of law. Look how the British police murdered a Brazilian man simply because he looked like a refugee from the Arab or Asian world.

Throughout Europe political parties are competing for power while using brutal vocabulary to describe immigrants. This is there best tool to gain office in their countries through denigrating immigrants as the cause of all of Europe’s ills. We are back to the days of when Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Party accused the Jews of everything going wrong under the sun in several European countries. In the Scandinavian countries the current regime in Denmark came to power because its party members were ultra racists.

In Sweden where I reside, I am quite worried about the future of our immigrant children. Africans and foreigners can’t get employment or have a decent home in a Swedish neighborhood with a Swedish surname. In short, racism in Sweden is quite deeply institutionalized. As it stands today one Swedish political party – the Liberals ( Folk Party) is borrowing the lesson from Denmark. I think discrimination in Sweden is much higher than in the whole of Europe.

While Europe and America prides itself in levels of economic and social development, those societies forget the foot soldiers from Africa and elsewhere were the ones who labored, with minimal or no compensation, for the prosperity the West enjoys. These so-called “savages,” as Africans are regarded by people like the French Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy, and followers of racist party of Jean Marie Le Pen’s teachings, have as much right to enjoy the wealth their forefathers created.

Looking forward to hearing your comments. Thanks for taking a look at us. Do visit the web site as well. That address is: www.internationalaccess.org

See you next time!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS ( To whatever you celebrate or don't celebrate! Ha! )

All the best,

Eric K. Williams, Executive Director
The INTERNATIONAL ACCESS NETWORKS / I-A-N, Inc.
Late December 2005