When Denmark criminalised kindness | Hacker News Reader

When Denmark criminalised kindness

granta.com

32 pointsmiraj26 comments

Kindness is not strictly speaking always supposed to be legal -- it can be considered kind to aid someone in escaping from prison but it's not legal and I think most would agree that it's wrong/immoral/unethical.

Her defence against the legal trouble is that she did not know about the legal requirement; this is not a valid defence in the eyes of the law and have time upon time be struck down in Danish courts.

It is odd to me that the criminality of aiding someone in the interior of a country (I.e. not crossing the border) would hinge on whether they were there legally. As the author mentions, that would seem to put an undue burden on her to determine whether someone's immigration papers are in order. I guess that doesn't stop it from being illegal, but it makes it nearly impossible to determine if one is in compliance.

In the US, we have the defense of "entrapment by estoppel," wherein a government official actively misleads one into thinking an illegal act is legal. That's really closer to what happened in the article than simple ignorance. The author asked police multiple times if what he was doing was illegal.

> this is not a valid defence in the eyes of the law

This is particularly troublesome since some laws are obscure or hidden (you have to know where to look or you just can't have the content of the law - by another law), and also since some (all?) laws are written in a complicated language to be pretty hard to understand.

Imagine laws written in, say, C, in a world without computers - I wonder how law would be practiced there.

Amazing and well written piece that gives a unique perspective on the situation: someone actually trying to help purely out of basic human decency and others based on a vitriolic political agendas stepping all over those actions.

History really does rythme.

Maybe there are other reasons that people didn't want a refugee shelter popping up next door to them, like crime and overcrowding. If she wants to help she can follow the law and do it without forcing everyone in her neighborhood to participate in a refugee transportation and housing operation.

She gave five or six people a ride, served them coffee, and then sent them on their way. Hardly a refugee shelter!

You're ignoring the part where they organized a campaign on Facebook that got hundreds of cars and boats to move people, and finally only stopped when they were trying to rent multiple buses and were told by the police to stop it.

Forcing?

I live in Denmark, and unfortnately this story is true. It seems like we have learnt nothing since World War II

Fellow dane here. I think the direction the mainstream political parties are moving is a national shame.

yes I agree. I was part of a Danish Government programme in 2013 where top members of the Danish government publicly said that they wanted Denmark to be the best country in the world for foreigners. Then to make a U-Turn like this shows that we have become just like the USA, with big promises to get elected and no substance anymore!

The only solution to the immigration/refugee issue is to help people near to where they came from. I consider it unquestionable that Europe cannot absorb all the people that want/need to come here.

So pour as much money as necessary into establishing proper facilities in the nearby countries. Greece could do with the capital injection, and if not I bet other countries would gladly bid for the opportunity of an industry on this scale. That would be equally Samaritan and actually have a chance of being efficient, for many reasons.

- More cost-effective

- Save the refugees a grueling trip and eliminate black market people traffickers

- A facility in a neighboring country actually stands a chance of determining the status of each refugee, as they will more easily be able to research local conditions

- People who aren't actually refugees will have to first make it to the actual crisis zone, making it more difficult to fake refugee status

- Refugees will be able to more easily return to their homes when/if the security situation is resolved

In my opinion, this system could easily be enforced by adopting a policy where each refugee must register at a entry point near each crisis area. Here they will be fingerprinted and have their case registered in the system.

Now, anyone that turns up anywhere inside Europe is summarily sent back to any of the entry points to start the process properly. As soon as this gets known among refugees (which will be within days), no more people will trek a thousand kilometers or pay criminals to transport them, since they will be sent back anyway.

Very interesting read.

For people who know the history and believe in human stupidity to repeat its mistakes, there is much to reflect. There are people who think that, whatever happens, they will be on the safe side, but you never know how things might evolve and one day you might be on the "unsafe" side.

The author was showing a little kindness to people who are fleeing a war.

Not everyone thinks the same way, so I can imagine indifference here and there. If you're on an online website, rather than confronted right then-and-there with another human being in need, I can imagine you take a somewhat abstract view.

What surprised me in the story was the outright hatred and aggression some people have towards "the other".

Tl;dr the author transported illegal refugees to Sweden, despite suspecting it to be illegal; is somehow upset for being sued

"Illegal refugees". What a lovely phrase you've come up with. I'm sure people will stop fleeing a war if you tell them that it's illegal.

Sorry, minced my words there. Of course there's no such thing as an illegal refugee.

Technically the author did not, nor the husband, transport the refugees to Sweden. They helped them with tickets to the train.

"So my husband offered them a lift to the train station on the Danish side of the border. He bought them tickets to Helsingborg and made sure they got on the right train."

Then it is actually the Danish State Railways responsibility to make sure they aren't transporting any illegal immigrants across the border. And that has since then been the case. You can't board the train to Sweden any longer without valid ID.

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