by Bruce Bawer • November 23, 2019 at 5:00 am
[A]s commentator Nina Hjerpset-Østlie put it, it is now illegal "to burn your own books". Which, she added, means that although Norway's longstanding blasphemy law was taken off the books four years ago, Bjørnland has, in effect, reinstated it.
Jon Wessel-Aas, a prominent lawyer... called Bjørnland's one-woman revision of the racism clause "at best prior restraint of an illegal utterance," and at worst "prior restraint of a legal utterance." Both forms of restraint, he noted, are unconstitutional.
In defense of Bjørnland's novel interpretation of criminal law, Martin Bernsen, a senior official of the PST, the agency in charge of Norway's national security, argued that burning copies of the Koran can trigger acts of violence. Under this kind of logic, of course – the so-called heckler's veto – any statement or action whatsoever that just might antagonize violence-prone Muslims should presumably be treated as illegal, whereas burning, say, any number of copies of the Talmud or Bible is no problem, since Jews and Christians aren't in the habit of responding to such actions with mass acts of savage bloodshed.
As commentator Nina Hjerpset-Østlie put it, in Norways it is now illegal "to burn your own books". Which, she added, means that although the longstanding blasphemy law was taken off the books four years ago, it has in effect been reinstated by Benedicte Bjørnland, director of the national police. (Image source: iStock)
Americans whose memory of public events goes back more than a news cycle or two may recall Terry Jones, a previously obscure Gainesville, Florida, preacher whose announcement in 2010 of a plan to burn copies of the Koran drew public condemnations from then President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the top US military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus. Secretary of State Robert Gates phoned Jones personally and asked him not to go ahead with the burning.
In the end, Jones put off his planned 2010 action, burning one Koran in 2011, another in 2012, and hundreds on September 11, 2014.
by Judith Bergman • November 22, 2019 at 5:00 am
"The industries have a very limited need for people without experience and education." — Johanna Odö, municipal councilor; Aftonbladet, October 3, 2019.
Now, to save money, the Ystad municipality will no longer serve hot meals to the elderly and cleaning services will be limited to once every three weeks.
Motala municipality had said that it would lower the heat in buildings managed by the city, including old age homes, to save money. "We will take care of the elderly; they will not be freezing, they can have blankets," the message went.
Meanwhile, in June, the Swedish parliament voted in favor of a law that is likely to increase immigration to Sweden based on family reunification.
Every fourth municipality and every third region in Sweden ran a budget deficit in 2018. Many municipalities are making budget cuts. The cities of Ystad and Motala will no longer serve hot meals to the elderly. Motala announced that it would lower the heat in buildings managed by the city, including old age homes, to save money. Pictured: An elderly homeless man in Stockholm, Sweden. (Image source: iStock)
New figures from the European Union's statistical bureau, Eurostat, show that unemployment is rising in Sweden. According to Eurostat, unemployment there was 7.4% in August, whereas the EU average for August was 6.2 %. This leaves Sweden, on Eurostat's unemployment ranking of countries, at number 24 out of 28. According to the daily newspaper Expressen, one of the main reasons for Sweden's high unemployment happens to be the large number of immigrants that the country has taken in.
As late as February 2019, Sweden's Minister of Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, mocked those who worried that migration would lead to mass unemployment: "Do you remember when the doomsayers were squawking that migration would lead to mass unemployment?," he tweeted. "Now: unemployment continues to fall among foreign-born and young people. For domestic-born it is at a record low".
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