The burka ban comes to Denmark

The opening of the Danish Parliament in the first week of October is traditional occasion to take stock of the political situation: the balance of power, the administration’s intentions and its chances of fulfilling them. This year a leading theme is a rift in the Liberal Party, the largest party in the government coalition. The week before, the party’s immigration spokesperson, Marcus Knuth, commented favorably on Facebook on the success of the xenophobic AfD (Alternative for Germany) party in the German election.

Knuth’s colleague, Jan Jørgensen, responded “WTF” (in English – maybe it’s becoming a global trope in political commentary at this historical juncture). Knuth walked back his remark: By a “better balance” in the German Parliament, he meant that he hoped that the conservative parties would get tougher on immigration in order to pre-empt the rise of far right.

Those cartoons again

Around the same time, Inger Støjberg, the outspoken immigration minister, also took to Facebook to comment on an exhibition on blasphemy at the Skovgaard Museum in Viborg. She noted that the show omitted the most famous example of blasphemy in Denmark in recent times, the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in Jyllands-Posten in 2005 that led to riots in the Arab world. It wasn’t enough for her to reiterate her dedication to the principle of freedom of expression. She also shared a screenshot of her iPad background – the most famous of the cartoons, the one by Kurt Westergaard with a bomb in Mohammed’s turban.

The reaction from the media and opposition figures was to criticize Støjberg for gratuitous provocation – even egotistical and childish grandstanding – or to make fun of her for not having a more personal photo on her iPad. Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen made a suitably politic response (DK): He wasn’t “proud of any cartoons” himself, but he was proud to live in a country with freedom of expression.

Rounding up a majority

This was only a warm-up for one of the main items on the parliamentary agenda: a ban on burkas and niqabs. The far-right Danish People’s Party has been pushing for this for a while, but the Liberal Party had resisted. Similar laws in France and Belgium were recently upheld by the European Court of Human Rights. That was perhaps the factor that tipped the Liberal Party in favor of the proposal despite opposition from some of its leading figures.

The bill is formulated as a ban on masks, not specifically religious attire. It would thus apply as well to the ski masks sometimes worn by anti-fascist demonstrators who sometimes commit vandalism. The Liberal Party explains that it must balance the considerations of freedom to dress as one wants with the principle that in an open society, people need to be able to see one another. The Liberal Alliance, Denmark’s most libertarian party, also changed its position to support the proposal, citing the oppression of women that the burka represents.

Along with the long-time support of the Conservative Party, that was enough to give the proposal a majority. Since the government’s decision was announced, the Social Democrats, who had said they were waiting to see the actual proposal, also decided to support the measure (DK). 

Combating sexism with a dress code

Both the flaunting of the cartoon and the burka ban are seen as hardline moves by the government against the spread of the “parallel” Muslim society. But isn’t anyone bothered by a contradiction between the ban and the celebration of freedom of expression? Yes. Of the three leading daily newspapers, only the conservative Berlingske Tidende (DK) favors the ban. Both the further-right Jyllands-Posten (DK) (where the Mohammed cartoons appeared) and the left-leaning Politiken (DK) oppose it.

There are only an estimated 100 to 200 women in the country who wear a burka or niqab. No one suggests they are a security threat, and the police are pretty busy with gang wars at the moment. These are consenting adults after all. Some may be victims of coercion, others have been indoctrinated to accept their “oppression,” and others yet are educated ethnic Danish converts.

A ban on masks at demonstrations could be enforced without its being extended to religious clothing. The ban is thus largely a symbolic gesture of disapproval of fundamentalist Islam. Whether you favor it depends on whether you consider the threat of Islam to be so urgent that it justifies compromising the freedom of expression that is “fundamental” to a liberal democracy or whether you want to score political points with a certain constituency. In a recent poll (conducted just after a Danish modeling agency had announced its first hijab-wearing model), some 62% of Danes favored the ban.

The happiest convicts in the world

The new complex is located outside a town of about 2,000 on a quiet rural landscape surrounded by small farms and clumps of woods. It has a gym with a beautiful huge mural of a seascape commissioned from a well-known painter. In the square at the center, where the residents mix freely with the staff, there is a school, a library, a grocer and recreation facilities such as a sound studio. The church and prayer room are bright, modern and inviting. There is a football field and workshops. The 140 square-foot private rooms each have a toilet, shower, refrigerator, TV and natural light from two sides, including a floor-to-ceiling window with a view of a lawn or a kitchen garden. They are situated around shared kitchens and common areas.

What is it, a college campus, a retreat center, a luxury hotel, a wellness spa? No, it’s Storstrøm Fængsel, the world’s newest maximum-security prison, which opened on September 25 on the island of Falster, Denmark. The objective was to make it resemble a village and ordinary life so that it is easier for the inmates to adapt to the outside world when they leave. Prisons in Scandinavia have been tending in this direction since around the 1970s. The Halden prison in Norway is perhaps the best-known example of architectural design based on the “normality principle.” Storstrøm Prison is intended to rival it in that regard. According to the Berlingske Tidende daily, it is intended to be “the most humane prison in the world” (DK). The officials behind the project believe that the architecture helps  to resocialize criminals, some of whom have never experienced a normal daily life.

It takes a village

Security has not been compromised, prison officials insist. There are a 20-foot wall as well as a fence around the entire complex and a separate locked high-security section. The open areas are covered by 300 cameras, and there are user-friendly electronic communications between the residential units and guards. The 250 inmates are divided into units of 54, and with the push of a button, they can be further locked down into small units about four to seven inmates. The smaller units make it easier for the staff, which also numbers about 250, to work with the convicts and easier to avoid problems that could arise from gang rivalries. The officials emphasize that contact between staff and convicts is important in identifying signs of radicalization. There has also been much interest from prison guards (DK) who want to work at the state-of-the-art facility.

From panopticon to entertainment center

An American prison guard who visited a few years ago was reportedly shocked at the planned conditions: “Prisoners shouldn’t be coddled.” Will Romanian pickpockets be tempted to come to Denmark and get themselves caught in order to get off the streets in the winter? The prison officials don’t think so. The main thing is that they are locked up and deprived of their cell phones. Nobody wants that. Taxpayers also ask why they should all have TVs? Because it keeps them occupied. Why should they have private toilets and baths? It saves money because guards don’t have to accompany them down a hall and avoids conflicts with other inmates.

The architects maintain that the buildings and facilities won’t make life easy for the inhabitants. Prisons are always rough environments. They note that prisons from the mid-19^th century were criticized for being too comfortable because they had toilets and electricity, which many criminals weren’t used to. Prisons should be built to last for a hundred years. According to the lead architect, Mads Mandrup Hansen of the C.F. Møller firm, who has presented the design at conferences around the world (DK), the idea is to create a framework for positive coexistence (the word he used was fælleskab, which usually connotes fellowship and community), but the architecture can’t do that by itself.

Evidence-based punishment?

Sounds good in theory, but does this bleeding-heart, rehab approach work and help make Denmark the happiest country in the world? Can a happy country afford to show compassion toward its less fortunate delinquents, and do comfortable convicts make law-abiding if not decidedly happy citizens afterward? What do the data on the recidivism rate for similar prisons say? There’s little information about that in all the coverage of the impressive new facility.

The crime rate is relatively low in Scandinavia, especially the violent crime rate. But prison design and policies are hardly the only factors in that. There must be a body of literature on the effects of various methods of incarceration, so it’s a little odd that it’s never mentioned. In any case, the new joint may get a good test because after a rash of gang-war shootings in Copenhagen in recent months, many dangerous characters who could use effective treatment have been arrested and jailed.

In contrast, the US, leaning back toward the eye-for-an-eye school under the new administration, recently voted against a UN resolution condemning the death penalty for behavior such as adultery, gay sex and blasphemy.