Six Danish activists who sold T-shirts bearing the logos of two groups classified by the EU as terrorist organizations have been found guilty of financing terrorism.
Denmark’s Supreme Court ruled that the six — all members of the Fighters+Lovers collective — were found to have contravened the country’s anti-terror laws by selling T-shirts to help fund the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). All the defendants received suspended prison sentences of between two and six months.
The case, which has prompted Denmark’s biggest debate over freedom of expression since the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed four years ago, began in January 2006 when Fighters+Lovers launched a collection of T-shirts under the slogan “Look Great And Stand Up For Freedom.”
The shirts were sold on the Internet for £15 (US$22), with about £3.5 of the purchase price going to support “humanitarian projects” carried out by FARC and the PFLP. But the collective, which describes itself as “a brand, a cloth company and a record label” working “on the borderline between fashion, culture and politics,” soon fell foul of the law, and in February 2006, the defendants were arrested. All the T-shirts were seized and the group’s bank account was frozen before any money could reach FARC and the PFLP.
The accused denied committing any crime, arguing that the EU “terror list” was undemocratic because it was drawn up behind closed doors according to unknown criteria. They also maintained that both the PFLP and FARC were not terrorist groups but legitimate resistance movements comparable to Denmark’s own resistance fighters, who took on the Nazis during World War II.
One of the defendants, Katrine Willumsen, a 26-year-old student, said that she and her fellow campaigners were examining their options and considering an appeal.
“We have taken this to the highest level in Denmark but we are considering applying to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg,” she said. “The verdict is very bad and it’s not just a problem for us: It’s a problem for the whole of Denmark.”
However, Ulrik Kohl, who was given a six-month suspended sentence, said that the group’s plight had inspired others to fight for freedom of expression.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing