Danish government persecutes people helping refugees

Lisbeth Zornig

Translated from NOS TV in the Netherlands:

Danish author on trial for helping hitchhiking refugees

Today, 16:35

The Danish writer and activist Lisbeth Zornig will be in court today because they she helped a hitchhiking Syrian family. She is suspected of people smuggling. It is one of the many lawsuits against Danes who helped refugees.

Zornig, previously children’s ombudsman in Denmark, saw in September big groups of refugees walking in the south of Denmark, on their way from Germany to Sweden. “I just could not go home with an empty car. I did not know it was forbidden to take hitchhikers,” she said.

The writer let the four adults and two children into her car and took them to Copenhagen. This happened while she was interviewed by a Danish TV station. “I always thought that you smuggle if you cross borders, or if you are asking for money. Not if you just stay within the borders of the country. But unfortunately it appears that is not the case in Denmark.”

The Danish Aliens Act makes it a crime to transport people who have no fixed abode. 279 people have thereto committed such a ‘crime’ from September to January, police say.

In January, a man was fined 670 euros because he had allowed a hitchhiking Afghan family into his car. Yesterday a 70-year-old man was fined for carrying refugees. He has to pay 1675 euros.

Zornig’s husband is being sued because he has treated the family at his home to coffee and biscuits, has brought them to the train station and has bought tickets to Sweden for them.

The author says she is innocent of people smuggling. She says she just wanted to help people who were in trouble. The verdict in the case is expected today.

Confiscating valuables

In Denmark the center-right government of Prime Minister Rasmussen does everything to make the country unattractive for refugees. In September, the government placed advertisements in four Lebanese newspapers with the message: refugees, do not come to Denmark.

Parliament passed in late January a package of measures that should put off asylum seekers in many ways. Under the new law, asylum seekers have to give up their jewelry to pay for their stay.

Danish children’s rights activist fined for people trafficking. Lisbeth Zornig says her fine for giving a lift to family of Syrians is ‘criminalising decency’ amid asylum clampdown in Denmark: here.