Daily Archives: February 16, 2015

TIME World Denmark Danish PM Defends Freedom of Speech After Attacks "We must insist on acting as we do. Think and talk like we want to. We are who we are"

The Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has insisted that the series of shooting attacks in Copenhagen will not alter the countrys belief in the freedom of speech.

They want to violate our freedom of speech, they want to violate our belief in religious freedom, she said at a press conference on Sunday.

Its time for unity in Denmark. The coming days will be tough to get through. We have to understand what has hit us, but we must insist on acting as we do. Think and talk like we want to. We are who we are.

Police continued their investigation after a gunman who had already killed one person and injured three officers in an attack on a panel discussion dedicated to free speech, struck again on Sunday morning, this time killing another and injuring two outside the citys main synagogue. Hours later, in a dragnet the likes of which this peaceful Nordic city has never seen, the shooter himself was shot dead by police.

The attacks began just after 3:30pm on February 14. A gunman armed with an automatic weapon sprayed a caf in a cultural center in the eastern part of Copenhagen with bullets killing 55-year-old documentary filmmaker Finn Nrgaard and wounding three members of security forces. At the time, the caf was hosting a discussion on freedom of expression, that included among its panelists the French ambassador to Denmark, Franois Zimeray, and Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist and art historian who has been the object of several assassination attempts since he published a cartoon in 2007 that depicted the prophet Mohammed as a dog. Vilks later told the press he was certain he was the object of the attack.

They fired on us from the outside. It was the same intention as Charlie Hebdo except they didnt manage to get in, Zimeray told Agence France-Presse. Bullets went through the doors and everyone threw themselves to the floor.

After finding the car in which the gunman had initially escaped, police fanned out throughout the city, erecting roadblocks and passenger controls at airports and train stations in an attempt to keep the perpetrator from slipping across the border to Sweden or Germany. But he hadnt gone that far. Just after 1am, a gunman fired shots in front of the citys main synagogue, wounding two police officers and one member of the synagogue who was controlling access to a bar mitzvah being celebrated by roughly 80 people inside. That member, 37-year-old Dan Uzan, later died of his wounds. Its what weve always feared, said synagogue president Daniel Rosenberg Asmussen in an interview with Danish television DR2. It is also what we have always warned could happen in Denmark.

Overnight, the center of the city was locked down, and police advised citizens to stay in their homes or, if they were already out, in the bars and clubs where they found themselves. Around 4 am, a suspect returned to an apartment in the northern part of the city that police had been monitoring since the afternoon. When police approached the man, he began firing at them. In the ensuing exchange of shots, the man was killed. We believe that the man shot by riot police this morning is the one behind the two attacks, said chief police inspector Torben Mlgrd Jensen at an early morning press conference.

The similarities between the Copenhagen shootings and the attack that took place in Paris last month in the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket were lost on no one. After the Charlie Hebdo event, we knew that there would be more attention directed toward the cartoon affair, says Lars Erslev Andersen, a senior researcher on terrorism at the Danish Institute for International Studies.

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Danish PM Defends Freedom of Speech After Attacks

TIME World Terrorism Updated: Feb. 14, 2015 8:14 PM Lars RonbogGetty Images A victim is carried into an ambulance after a shooting at a public meeting and discussion arranged by the Lars Vilks Committee about Charlie Hebdo and freedom of speech on Feb. 14, 2015 in Copenhagen.

Still alive in the room.

As gunfire erupted outside a Copenhagen cultural center on Saturday afternoon, French ambassador Franois Zimeray tweeted that message to the world.

The message conveys some of the terror that Zimeray and other participants in a panel discussion on freedom of speech must have felt. But the presence of mind that it took to send contains an even more chilling suggestion: no longer are such violent crimes unexpected.

Although Danish authorities have not detained the perpetrator or established his motives, all evidence suggests that the Feb. 14 attack, like that at the Parisian satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and like several attempted attacks in Denmark before that, was motivated by cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Soon after 3:30 p.m., a gunman (authorities originally said there were two, but later revised the figure) wearing a maroon baklava and armed with an automatic weapon tried to shoot his way into the caf at Krudttoenden, a cultural center in eastern Copenhagen, where a discussion entitled Art, Blasphemy, and Freedom of Expression, was underway.

He was prevented from entering by police, but not before he fired dozens of shots, killing a 40-year-old man, and injuring three officers. For Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who was attending the panel discussion, there was no doubt about who the intended target was: himself. After publishing a cartoon in 2007 that depicted the Prophet Muhammad as a dog, Vilks had a $100,000 bounty placed on his head by the then-leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and has been the object of several assassination attacks.

What other motive could there be? he told the Associated Press.

The Danish prime minister identified the attack as terrorism and put the nation on high alert. Police have set up controls around major transit hubs to prevent the perpetrator, who escaped the crime scene by hijacking a VW Polo, from leaving the country. Just after 1 a.m. on Feb. 15, a second shooting took place, this one at Copenhagens main synagogue. According to police, one person was shot in the head and two police officers were wounded, but they have not yet determined whether this attack is related to the earlier one. The suspect in the synagogue shooting fled on foot.

We must end this as soon as possible, because we must not get into a situation like the one we saw in Paris, where they took hostages, Hans Jorgen Bonnichsen, chief of operations for the Danish intelligence service PET, told the Danish newspaper Berlingske.

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Free Speech Debate Still Alive After Attack in Denmark

Prime minister describes first shooting at freedom of speech event as a terrorist attack

Bullet holes seen in the window and door of Krudttonden cafe after shots were fired during a discussion meeting about art, blasphemy and free speech in Copenhagen. One person was killed. Photograph: EPA

Forensic police officers work at the area around a cultural centre in Copenhagen, Denmark, where unidentified gunmen killed at least one person and wounded several police officers after opening fire. Photograph: Claus Bjorn Larsen/AFP/Getty Images

Police forensic specialists investigate at the scene of the first shooting in Copenhagen. Police said on Sunday the suspected gunman in two shooting attacks in the city had been shot dead. Photograph: EPA

Danish police shot and killed a man in Copenhagen on Sunday they believe was responsible for two deadly attacks at an event promoting freedom of speech and on a synagogue.

Denmarks spy chief Jens Madsen said the gunman was known to the intelligence services prior to the shooting and probably acted alone. He did not elaborate.

We cannot yet say anything concrete about the motive ... but are considering that he might have been inspired by the events in Paris some weeks ago, Mr Madsen told a news conference.

The prime minister described the first shooting, which bore similarities to an assault in Paris in January on the office of weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, as a terrorist attack.

Two civilians died in Saturdays attacks and five police were wounded. One man died in the first shooting, in a cafe hosting Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has been threatened with death for depicting the Prophet Mohammad in cartoons. Another died in an attack on a synagogue close by.

Islamist gunmen attacked a Jewish supermarket in Paris two days after the Charlie Hebdo attack. Danish police had launched a massive manhunt with helicopters roaring overhead and an array of armoured vehicles on the usually peaceful streets of

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Copenhagen suspect known to police

Prime minister describes first shooting at freedom of speech event as a terrorist attack

Bullet holes seen in the window and door of Krudttonden cafe after shots were fired during a discussion meeting about art, blasphemy and free speech in Copenhagen. One person was killed. Photograph: EPA

Forensic police officers work at the area around a cultural centre in Copenhagen, Denmark, where unidentified gunmen killed at least one person and wounded several police officers after opening fire. Photograph: Claus Bjorn Larsen/AFP/Getty Images

Police forensic specialists investigate at the scene of the first shooting in Copenhagen. Police said on Sunday the suspected gunman in two shooting attacks in the city had been shot dead. Photograph: EPA

Danish police shot and killed a man in Copenhagen on Sunday they believe was responsible for two deadly attacks at an event promoting freedom of speech and on a synagogue.

Denmarks spy chief Jens Madsen said the gunman was known to the intelligence services prior to the shooting and probably acted alone. He did not elaborate.

We cannot yet say anything concrete about the motive ... but are considering that he might have been inspired by the events in Paris some weeks ago, Mr Madsen told a news conference.

The prime minister described the first shooting, which bore similarities to an assault in Paris in January on the office of weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, as a terrorist attack.

Two civilians died in Saturdays attacks and five police were wounded. One man died in the first shooting, in a cafe hosting Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has been threatened with death for depicting the Prophet Mohammad in cartoons. Another died in an attack on a synagogue close by.

Islamist gunmen attacked a Jewish supermarket in Paris two days after the Charlie Hebdo attack. Danish police had launched a massive manhunt with helicopters roaring overhead and an array of armoured vehicles on the usually peaceful streets of

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Copenhagen police kill suspect linked to two fatal attacks

Freedom of speech is at stake during provincial and municipal campaigns, according to a Vancouver-based advocacy group thats taken the issue to the provinces top court.

The B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association was in court Friday appealing a decision last year that denied the advocacy groups constitutional challenge to a section of the B.C. Election Act - which requires everyone to register with the province before doing any kind of third-party election advertising.

That means if someone within an election campaign period makes or wears a related t-shirt, for example, or posts a public sign stating a related opinion, must register as election advertisers or risk facing a $10,000 fine or up to a year in jail.

B.C. is the only province in Canada that requires third-party election advertisers to register with authorities with no minimum amount that must be spent on the advertising, according to Vincent Gogolek, B.C. FIPA executive director.

What the government has done is imposed a ban on political expression with criminal penalties, he said.

Most provinces have a minimum $500 registration threshold for advertising expenditures.

Its had the effect of actually restricting free speech, he said. People have shut down websites, refused to comment because theyre intimidated by the law.

But the B.C. Attorney General argued the mandatory registration and identification provisions ensure that during the campaign period leading up to a fixed date election ... the electorate is able to determine who is doing the speaking.

This ability to identify the speaker and their message is key to fulfilling the goals of promoting transparency, openness and public accountability in the electoral process and encouraging an informed electorate, it stated in its respondent letter.

Freedom of expression works both ways to protect the speaker and to protect the listener.

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Political expression isnt criminal: group

Copenhagen, Denmark Danish police shot and killed a man early Sunday suspected of carrying out shooting attacks at a free speech event and then at a Copenhagen synagogue, killing two men, including a member of Denmark's Jewish community. Five police officers were also wounded in the attacks.

"Denmark has been hit by terror," Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said. "We do not know the motive for the alleged perpetrator's actions, but we know that there are forces that want to hurt Denmark. They want to rebuke our freedom of speech."

Jens Madsen, head of the Danish intelligence agency PET, said investigators believe the gunman was inspired by Islamic radicalism.

"PET is working on a theory that the perpetrator could have been inspired by the events in Paris. He could also have been inspired by material sent out by (the Islamic State group) and others," Madsen said.

Islamic radicals carried out a massacre at the Charlie Hebdo newsroom in Paris last month, followed by an attack on Jews at a kosher grocery store, taking the lives of 17 victims.

At a news conference Madsen also said investigators have identified the suspect and that he is someone who had been on the agency's "radar." He did not reveal his identity.

Denmark's Chief Rabbi, Jair Melchior, identified the Jewish victim as Dan Uzan, 37, a longtime security guard for the 7,000-strong community. He was guarding a building behind the synagogue during a bat mitzvah when he was shot. Two police officers who were there were slightly wounded.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decried the attack and said his government plans to encourage a "massive immigration" of Jews from Europe.

"Again, Jews were murdered on European soil just because they were Jews," Netanyahu said at the start of his Cabinet meeting Sunday. "This wave of attacks is expected to continue, as well as murderous anti-Semitic attacks. Jews deserve security in every country, but we say to our Jewish brothers and sisters, Israel is your home."

Other leaders also condemned the attacks, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU President Donald Tusk,

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Danish police kill man suspected of Saturday's attacks