Copenhagen, Denmark
by Bent Lorentzen
August 13, 2009:
Early this Thursday morning, a little after 1 AM, over 100 Danish police, many decked out in nightmarish battle-armor, violently stormed Broson's Church in the Nørrebro section of Copenhagen. The church had given asylum to a few dozen Iraqi refugees in June, 2009, who were threatened by the Danish government with forced deportation back to the war Denmark helped create. The refugees had originally been given sanctuary at the Church of Our Lady in May (where Crown Prince Frederick married Mary Donaldson of Australia a few years ago), but moved later to Broson (Lutheran) church to be nearer to the Muslim community in Nørrebro.
Following the police action early this morning, which also was aimed at some 300 protesters gathered outside - many of them bloody from nightstick abuse – Integration Minister, Rønn Hornbech, stated that the police were just following the law, and denied vehemently that this was a political move to pacify the Danish People's Party xenophobic coalition. She reiterated that Denmark has an agreement with the Iraqi government to force the refugee seekers back.
However, earlier this week, on Monday, August 10, 2009, the Iraqi government stated that this is a lie, and that Iraq will not accept forced deportees. “We have no such agreement with Denmark,” said Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, from Baghdad.
“I have been at the church since before 2 AM,” said Broson Church parish priest, Per Ramsdal, “and am in utter chock. It is unthinkable that the police could do this. This was very violent and the interior of the church is in shambles. It has always been an unwritten law that a church is a holy place that gives sanctuary to the heart and soul, and without political involvement. To my knowledge, this has never happened before in Danish history... Several Iraqi Muslim men stood desperately under our huge symbol of Christ dying on the cross at the altar, and the police simply ignored all humanity in the rampage. I did not imagine this would occur in Denmark, and especially not in the way it was executed. It went down very violently.” Dozens of Muslim children. their mothers and grandmothers also were forcibly removed from the church.
Pastor Ramsdal went on to state that the violence was entirely from the police side, not the Iraqis seeing asylum. A young Iraqi man climbed to the bell tower and threatened to jump off, he explained When Ramsdal went through the church after the police left at about 3:45 AM, a frail Iraqi woman suddenly rose her hand from under a pile of disarrayed chairs and clothes. The police had not found her, and she was in deep shock.
I too, the writer bringing the news to the Gather community, am more in shock over this affair than almost anything I have experienced in my life. What on Earth has happened to the beautiful Denmark I grew up to love, and once praised so much in magazine articles, such as for the World & I?
(link) http://www.worldandi.com/specialreport/1995/july/Sa13320.htm
So please go now to this article, which I was in the middle of editing early this morning, when all this went down. Of Ants and Men, Will We Survive this Century?
Sadly, I had scheduled an interview with a couple of Iraqi families at the church next week for a documentary on the roots of human violence, which I am in the middle of producing.
Please write letters to President Obama, since he just helped appoint our previous prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to the General Secretary post of NATO. Fogh Rasmussen is the man primarily responsible for the way the Danish government now is behaving.
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Comments: 68
He saw a driver pulled over as a random check by police and a breathalyzer was shoved into the driver's mouth. Everything was OK, it was a random check and the driver passed, and the police waved him on. It was not that the driver was driving erratically, it was a random check. The driver had no right to refuse.
Also, my husband was on a train on Saturday night when the police rushed in and made a big deal of demanding to see everybody's tickets. No problem. My husband did not know the drill properly and did not have his train ticket displayed, and the police accused him of stealing passage on the train. My husband had to explain that he had his train ticket stub right there but did not know the drill. The police then said, OK and left.
I told my husband of your fine reportage about Denmark and the various serious issues in Denmark.
In Montreal last weekend, my daughter and I saw large MAERSK box cars at the train yard.
What you describe in terms of a lack of civil luiberties in much of Scandinavia is chilling. It is far worse in Denmark, where the police have the right to strip search even children and girls on open streets, and without any "cause." Denmark has become certifiably insane in its paranoid response to certain issues. If we were to suddenly get a Bush-like fascist as prime minister, it will be Germany in the 1930's all over again. We have not yet learned from that history, or have forgotten.
Thank god we didn't get Mccain-Palin in America
In 1998, we were in the Amsterdam airport and the KLM clerk told us a lot of people in the Netherlands were not for some of the changes the EU would bring - because Holland DID NOT WANT people from "Countries OVER THERE....." etc..
When I was in England in 1971 and saw the huge number of Indians working service jobs and that the Bobbies carried only nightsticks, I did tell people to expect a lot more violence in the UK in coming decades and that the Bobbies MIGHT have to begin carrying guns.
People did not believe me when I told them the influx of various groups workingonly in menial service jobs would give rise to social unrest.
I spoke with a young white guy from South Africa who told me racism was not a problem.
Not for YOU, I said. But just wait.
My students are surprised at the diversity of economic and social station and racial and ethnic diversity here, and are a bit uncomfortable with it because they are not used to it.
My students also feel, because they are middle class professionals who were born into their station and fell into comfortability with no effort on their part - they also feel shut out by the extremely competitive atmosphere here in the US.
I tell them that really it is about two things: Comfortability with English and
Comfortability with having to hustle all the time. Once they have mastered those, they will find jobs here.
I'll come back here when I have more time...
The Iraq War and allied issues are SYMPTOMS of an underlying problem, not the problem itself, but so few with power are willing to do the tough work necessary to heal a very old social illness. It goes back to issues from our evolutionary past.
Our political leaders in America and the rest of the free world will no longer listen to their people and blatantly spit in our faces know matter how much we contact them or protest their actions.
I don't have a solution but wish I did. People have to wake up to reality and take back their government especially in America because the world always follows our leadership.
We either support free government in a responsible way or we stay a corporate war profiteering government that is going to take us where we will not be able to recover.
You are right. This is one of the most seriouis problems facing civilization
Supposedly Americans live by and support their constitution that says all men are created equal, and that is how we should be dealing with all races worldwide not picking and choosing who is worth it and who is not.
The conservative TV voices call him a racist daily and liken him unto Hitler. So called "patriots" are openly carrying guns to his meeting places, threatening him and his family and generally mirroring pre-1960's vigilantes.
If he truly got into trying to heal over racial problems, I'd never get any sleep slapping down the Obama haters on Gather alone. No, he needs to leave that alone for now. I'm not sleeping as it is with continually countering the right's healthcare views. No no no no no......
Since I know many ESL students from other cultures who come into the US, I am quite aware of how different the US and Canada considers race relations compared to many other countries.
We do try here.
Some other countries ....well... NPR did a fine study last fall on Race Relations and Prejudice in Europe.
America, on the other hand, was among the world's least paranoid nations, despite the spin from Bush. The article I had been working on this evening dealt slightly with that. I was studying in the States in the 1960's and 70's, and remember well what America went through in terms of segregation.
We DO try here, but with varying..............
Yes, you do remember VERY well the time before the Civil Rights Law.
The Danish bishops are complertely divided over last night's horor, and a spkesperson from the Ministry of Justice stated he was considering criminal procedings aginst the parish priest. A Megafon poll taken last night chilled me. 61% of Danes feel it was OK or the police to be so violent.
But there's the other side too. 15,000 walked the streets of Copenhagen last evening, from Nørrebro to the Christiansborg parliamentary castle, several kilometers awaym in a huge but peaceful protest. Psychologists and psychiatrists are offering their services free to help the women and children whom the police deeply traumtized last night. I mean, how "triggering" can it be, with children and mothers having survived the horror of the collapse of their entire social fabric and infrastructures, with literal monsters at every streetcorner, and western troops in sciece-fiction scary vestement breaking down doors, finding their way to Denmark for sanctuary. And suddenly, in the middle of the night, storm troopers come screaming in.
But yes, I deeply love Denmark, its people, and the "potential" behind our fairy tale.
Shakespeare and HC Andersen both were good, in their various ways, at analyzing the good and bad sides to the deeper ego of Denmark
I realize from time to time that Americans are quite rebellious and independent compared to other nations.
The police sweep with big flashlights on the commuter train or metro train in Lahti last weekend was just routine and nobody had any problem with what we could consider police powers.
In Massachusetts, a driver is only given a breathalyzer when stopped by driving infraction seemingly caused by likely drunk driving. A driver can refuse the breathalyzer and insist to be taken to the station for a blood-alcohol test, which is more accurate, anyway.
A lot of nations' peoples are brought up to be more obedient than we Yanks. Obedience is a good thing. Everything in moderation.
And HC Andersen attempted to also bring it to the surface with his fairy tales.
But now, with Denmark having gone to war for the 1st time in over a century and half w/o provocation, and with major corporations earning huge incomes from that, like Maersk, that old putrificatioin is coming blatantly to the surface.
It may be a good thing, in the long run, for then people can see reality rather than believing the emperor has a nice suit, when in fact he is has not a stitch on, and only the simplest of us are willing to say anything against the PR image.
And the worst is how many actually condoine this.
But it has set a huge discussion into play in Danjish politics. But what I've observed in the past is the control a certain well-known monopoly has even on our free press.
some facts
1) in Moslem lands there is no church safe nor christians
2) Denmark did not help create the war in Iraq the terrorists who brought the war outside of iraq sponsered by iraq did
3) police brutality in moslem countries is the norm
4) The reason refugees are being checked is because there have been too many cases of terrorists entering western countries and smuggling weapons etc this way
5) Have you forgotten the riots started by the Moslem population in Denmark over a cartoon ??? burning shops and other places?
The use of a church to protect moslem refugees is cynical as there is no religious freedom in moslem countries
the use of the church to bring in more moslem refugees is absurd
who is causing the war in iraq? the local population against the local population
rather than enter western countries and complain for lack of freedom moslem refugees should stay in their own countries and fight for civil rights there!!
i am not excusing brutality however one needs to see the background
Denmark as well as other countries have seen a huge influx of refugees who take advantage of the democratic structure to promote their non democratic ideas
for the most part, this is the same in england to a large extent and everywhere else
in Australia, a friend told me, they were dancing in the street as the airplanes hit the twin towers
i would be cautious about condaming police force when you dont know the details
i am against any form of violence and brutality however realize that the local police in western countries need to be alert regarding the refugeees and look out for terrorists
who misuse their status
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
GWB created the war in Iraq.
Seagul, not true. Iraq was the world center for the John the Baptist christian church, and with the Bush war, Christians are being killed left and right like almost never in its history
Not true, Sea Gull.
Every argument Cheney and Bush made for going to war turned out to be eiother engineered lies or assumptions that made an ass out of everyone.
Since your commentary expresses the sad and narrow-minded view of a great many, I decided, for the sake of everyone who come by this article, to finish my response to you with a more obvious comment below.
Such a letter has only occured twice before, the first time when Denmark cooperated with Nazi Germany in the late 1930's
Where the hell were your ancestors with this advice when the pilgrims slunk over on boats?
These officers should not be able to practice law again for as long they live.
YOU ARE NOT ONE OF THEM. You are simply WRONG.
I am so very sorry it has reached your beautiful country.
Will come back later, when I have more time.
Please send me an email to let me know how you are.
I'll be back here later. Just very little time today.
Oh, so that makes it ok to treat them in unchristian like manner. OK, death to infidels.
2) Denmark did not help create the war in Iraq the terrorists who brought the war outside of iraq sponsered by iraq did
Oh! The 9/11 commision got it ALL WRONG, Iraq WAS responsible.
3) police brutality in moslem countries is the norm
So they were merely making them feel at home?
4) The reason refugees are being checked is because there have been too many cases of terrorists entering western countries and smuggling weapons etc this way
Could you provide a link? Or did you get this same info from the person who told you Iraq was responsible for Terrorist acts?
5) Have you forgotten the riots started by the Moslem population in Denmark over a cartoon ??? burning shops and other places?
Wow! with that argument they had better start beating up soccer fans quick.
Earth to Sea Gull, there were NO BURNING BUILDINGS in Denmark. For the most part, Danish Muslims had PEACEFUL protests.
Now I know why you call yourself seagull, you usually leave your message on the windshield of my car.
I have good friends who were there and saw it. The National Guard were like a pack of rabid dogs shooting at and beating kids on their way to classes. Would that you went through something like that.
I know what it is to be in middle of a riot. You were probably home with mommy and daddy, I was in the world trying to raise people up.
This just adds to the rabid behavior I've been subjected to by right wingers and witnessed with the tea parties and town hall maulers. These people say they are standing for the constitution. They stand shoulder to shoulder with white supremacists like the Minute Men and say that they are righteous. They are rabid dogs.
Thanks for setting the record straight with Carol,. I remember that incident as vividly as if it were yesterday, and like you, had friends that experienced it directly. It was some imbalanced men in uniform who with their toys of violence deciced to have a mass ejaculation on a college campus, at the cost of a human life and so much chaos.
Misery desires company.
Love yu so much, Sharon
“3) police brutality in moslem countries is the norm “
This is quite a ridiculous argument. Should the whole world sink to the level of abusers in reaction, and excuse such behaviors by saying, “Hey, that's the norm over there.” And merely because a small minority of Muslims in executive power in certain countries behave inhumanely to control its populations?
We in the so-called modern world who insist on democratic and humane values ought to learn from child psychology to help those who are victimized due to governments that behave like abusive parents. We have a responsibility in the “modern world” to lead by example. People learn from observation, not from rhetoric. Are you suggesting, then, that if a Detroit ghetto mother with children who goes to the police seeking relief from a violently abusive and paedophile husband, living with an extended family of uncles and cousins who also are violent paedophiles, be brutally forced back by the police into that abusive home?
“4) The reason refugees are being checked is because there have been too many cases of terrorists entering western countries and smuggling weapons etc this way”
What has that to do with this issue? I agree. Denmark, as with any sane nation, most definitely should check people at the borders for weapons or other means that threatens the national security.
“5) Have you forgotten the riots started by the Muslem population in Denmark over a cartoon ??? burning shops and other places?”
Actually, there were no “riots started by the Muslem population in Denmark over a cartoon.” The riots occurred in the Middle East. There were protests in Denmark, but those Copenhagen riots you are referring to, which occurred at about the same time as the Mohamed cartoon issue, had nothing to do with any Muslim contention but with “blond-haired, blue-eyed” (is that a good enough ethnic profiling for you?) Danish youth angry over a violent police action to clear out a clubhouse (originally given to at-risk youth by a previous Copenhagen mayor) so the Copenhagen county government could sell the building to a Christian evangelical cult, Faderhuset (Our Father's House). That dangerous cult has since gone bankrupt, and has subsequently been taken to court for various child-abuse charges, and charges that they forced some schizophrenic people not to take medication so a charismatic leader could do exorcisms on them.
And then you (and others above) go on and ramble with your arguments. I'm sad you feel the way you do, boxing all Muslims into a narrow-minded, xenophobic profiling. Just because a minority of American Christians – who adhere to a few select paragraphs in the Old Testament – incite unrest between Israel and some of her Arab neighbors in order to get an Apocalypse going so a select few can have a special place beneath a golden chair seating some strange bearded man in a white robe with cherubs nearby playing harps, does not mean that all American Christians are so insane. That sounds very much like profiling all Muslims as plotting to blow up anyone who doesn't believe in the literal interpretation of select phrases in the Koran, so they can enter some heaven with several dozen virgins lustfully awaiting to be mass-raped. I wish you'd study some high-school level psychology and biology, and understand that all human beings basically are driven by the very same hopes and dreams, which mostly has to do with nurturing their children so they can peacefully succeed in life. There are many neo-Nazis and white supremacist, anti-federal government potential terrorists in the heartland of America. Let's then profile all WASP-looking Americans coming to Scandinavia, and especially if their necks are sunburned red, to ensure our safety. Let's then also arrest and deport all people with obvious American haircuts in Armani suits and sporting Rolex watches, who who speak English with an American accent and come to the customs gate of Copenhagen Airport, since they likely are economic terrorists who will rape and pillage people's vulnerable retirement savings in Denmark's stock exchange. Let's then also arrest any American tourist coming to Denmark who bought the clothes on their backs from a Wall-Mart, since many of those products were outsourced-derived by exploiting locally unregulated worker rights – 3rd world slave- and child-labor – and destruction of their local habitats and social structures. Your argument is as pointless as what I've written above, and takes us on the path to a new dark age, especially now with countless socio-economic and environmental pressures threatening the globe.
In your argument, you state: “i am not excusing brutality however one needs to see the background.”
The background? Now I would suggest that you go back and read a high-school history text. Over many centuries, a Manifest Destiny mentality went rampant in Europe's old empire building, where any place in the world that had resources could be raped and pillaged, with its indigenous populations enslaved or murdered, and their women and children literally raped. Remember the old saying, “The sun never sets on the British empire?” Later, through the 20th century, and especially after the world wars, borders in Persia and the Middle East, and countless other places on many continents, kept being force-redefined, mostly to give multinational interests the continuing ability to exploit local resources, and fully ignoring the ancient cultural patterns of their societies. This is one reason we've had so many tyrants in Africa, for example.
Saddam in Iraq was a tyrant who served the cause of Reagan's fear of Iran following the unseating of another tyrant installed by America and Europe, the Shah. Saddam received military intelligence and economic support in the 1980's from America to further his war with Iran, and when he no longer served America's multinational interests, with all that oil beneath the sand, we (including Denmark) went to war there, fully destroying its entire social fabric and physical infrastructure, including the educational system. So many good teachers have been killed due to this war. Denmark's richest man, who owns the huge Maersk container ships that pollute the atmosphere and seas more than the whole country of Denmark, grew even wealthier with the war in Iraq. His monopoly, which got its seed money when he supplied Nazi occupational forces in Denmark with guns and ship-repair, has been given all the contracts by the US Department of Defense since the late 1950's to supply troops around the world with their weapons of mass destruction, including Agent Orange (Vietnam). So there's a built-in desire among some of Denmark's elite to fan the flames of social unrest in the world, since the resulting conflicts puts more gold in their pockets.
An argument can be made that Denmark and America behaved much like an insane police force that blows up a whole building filled with women and children in order to arrest a psychotic father who's holding those women and children hostage. Far more innocent people have died or been hurt in this war than Saddam was responsible for under his tenure. Millions, who had been living in relative peace, suddenly became homeless, with tens of thousands of children becoming orphaned. We traumatized and devastated countless millions, and all those children are psychological ticking time bombs. And we destroyed invaluable archaeological treasures at the very place where much of the modern world's intellectual property, including so much of mathematics and medicine, had its birth.
We have a responsibility now to treat that trauma, if for no other self-serving reason than to prevent creating yet another generation of vulnerable youth who potentially are tomorrow's terrorists, so angry they likely will be at the whole “modern” world. One of the cities Denmark wants to send these refugees back to in Iraq has just experienced a series of suicide bombings.
Most of the children of these asylum-seekers speak excellent Danish, have no notion of the local Iraqi culture, whatever is left of it, and they will immediately be vulnerable to horrific re-traumatization, as kidnappers now seek such “westernized” people to extort money. And what about their education, which now has been beheaded by the Danish government?
The paradoxical thing in the whole issue is that Saddam was so effective as a tyrant that he kept Al Quaida and other forces of western-aimed terrorism at bay. Our war in Iraq only served to empower those terrorists.
Love and compassion creates and nurtures life. Hate and its xenophobic allies, repulsion and dismissal, kills.
Your entire argument reeks of inhumanity. Have you ever read Christ's sermon on the mount? I thought that was the hallmark of Christianity. One does not embody weakness by expressing human compassion. One actually derives great power and wisdom from expressing compassion, as that sermon teaches, and such compassion is infectious. It is how you bring about proactive change in your world. In expressing that hate in your comment, you surrender to that metaphorical devil of the narcissistic ego, which is a treatable psychological pathology. And you also propagate your hate to the world around you, reinforcing all that which you find vile. Seek help.
I'd have your baby if I weren't already ready to eat the ones I've got.... teenagers! {{shudder}}
On behalf of the arrested Iraqis, tomorrow evening, Tuesday, August 18, a major concert is scheduled in front of the castle-like Copenhagen City Hall. Translated, the event is titled, “Humanitarian Refuge Now.”
Niels Hausgaard, one of its founders and a locally famous musician, stated, “On behalf of myself and the nation's highest authority – We the People – I wish to say, 'Stop!' This [police action] was a stupid, callous and unnecessary action, which we refuse to endorse.”
Also, one of the Iraqi asylum petitioners, Andam Fasil Jalal, arrested in the police action, was released, since officially his request for refuge has not yet been administratively processed. In a public statement, he said, “The police treated everyone heavy-handet on the police-bus ride to prison, including slapping us in the face while our hands were bound behind our backs.”
Copenhagen police public relations director, Flemming Steen Munk, responded by stating, “We will not deny that in connection with the transport of the prisoners to jail there occurred incidents of unrest, and the police pushed them back into their seats.”
The comments made for interesting reading.
I don't know if that is true, except it jibes so well with historical events down through the centuries.
xenophobia is unwarranted fear.
In terms of Muslim-Danes... yes, there is some fear of misunderstanding from the police, including the lack of civil liberties in Denmark which can cause issues in strip searching young women and even girls in public...which is why they often ask that someone who understands cultural patterns be involved, at least in the background
(BTW, I went to the Dr that did my surgery and he elected to leave me be as is for fear of making things worse. I will check back with him in another 6 months)
Thank you very much for your critique of that 4:17 response above. Yeah, sometimes what comes pouring out of those few pounds between my ears surprises me too.
An Iraqi gov't delegation just came to Denmark to access the viability of these rejected assylum seekers in being forced into repatriation. After they left, the Iraqi government reiterated its previous statement that they will not accept forced returneess, this time actually stating that such behaviors by Denmark goes against principles of human rights.
Several of the assylum seekers who were brutally taken from Broson's Lutheran Chruch have now been released.
Also, the church suffered some18,000 USD of damage due to the police action.
--However...
the paradoxical message of observing "human rights" by the Iraqi gov't for the assylum seekers in Denmark conflicts with the facts presented by the assylum-seekers lawyer, Kåre Traberg Smidt. He has launched a case against the Danish National Police (Rigspolitiet) and the Iraqi delegation for having abused the arrested Iraqis during a recent interrogation at the Danish prison where they haved been held since the violent action against them at Broson Church.
The underlying issue of ensuring the safety of Iraqis forced back to their war-torn land has also to do with several Islamic factions who now are killing and torturing one another. In one case, a family of four -- arrested by the Danish police at the Broson Church - have already lost most of their Iraq-based family to the internal terrror that was unleashed in the wake of the US-led invasion.
Yet another issue focusses on the Danish gov't pressuring the current Iraqi regime to accept all forced repatriations carte-blanche by threatening to withhold aid money to that governmemt.
In the weeks that have passed since this police action, the police published a video attempting to prove that the action against the church was peaceful. It unfortunately only released even more controversy.
Four of the Iraqis have now been sent back to Iraq, and the UN, Amnesty International and many other organizations has severely criticized Denmark for this. When these Sunni Kurds arrived in Bagdad, they were immediately arrested by the Arab majority-government. After the Iraqi government received a ransom payment from a private Danish refugee-help organization, they were released and sent to northern Iraq, where they were again arrested, released, and re-arrested, only to be released again. The trauma they are enduring due to current, and hopefully short-termed Danish politics is incomprehensible.
Two days ago, the issue came to a public debate aired on Danish National TV. Several hundred prominent Danish artists, priests, scientists, politicians and others have signed under a document that they will offer compassion to those in need or crisis, even if it means they are breaking the law as civil disobedience. The Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs went away from the debate with his tail between his legs, completely overwhelmed by those who intelligently debated for simple compassion. As I’ve always believed, even the most painful of circumstances can be transformative, ie, good will come out of this public debate which the police action at Broson’s Church provoked. It’s perhaps gotten a few more Danes to use their brains a bit more, and we have an election coming up next year. The polls since the police action at the church has put the Socialdemocrats (much like the US democratic party), led by a very intelligent woman, Helle Thorning Schmidt., in the lead.
A former Jægerkorps “elite” soldier (like the US Seals), Thomas Rathsack, is about to publish a book that our military and government does not want published. The book, among other things, describes an event I wrote and made a video on here at Gather and elsewhere. In 2002, Danish jægerkorps soldiers had captured in Afghanistan several suspected enemy combatants. Under Danish law and the Geneva Convention, POWs must not be tortured. But these Danish soldiers were ordered to give these POWs to a contingent of US soldiers known, according to a secret document, to torture POWs. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, then our Prime Minister and who is currently NATO’s General-secretary, has persistently denied any knowledge that Danish soldiers had given the POWs to US soldiers known for torturing POWs. That document has now surfaced, and shows that Anders Fogh Rasmussen was very aware of this back then.
There's talk now of arresting the priest at Broson's Church and prosecuting him. This is because a journalist called him, letting on that he was an illegal alien seeking refuge in Denmark from war, and the priest verbally offered him sanctuary.