| Submit your comments on this article |
| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Danes, Norwegians fleeing Levant |
| 2006-02-06 |
| Denmark and Norway said yesterday that their nationals had begun to leave Syria after protesters torched the buildings housing their embassies there in events the Danish foreign minister said were “beyond comprehension”. Danes were also told to leave Lebanon and Norwegians there were advised to remain indoors, after protesters in Beirut attacked the Danish consulate in protest against the publication of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) cartoons in both countries. “I am horrified to see the way violence and attacks are spreading throughout the Middle East,” Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller told reporters yesterday. “The actions in Lebanon and Syria yesterday are beyond comprehension and totally unacceptable,” he said. Some of the 70 Danes living in Syria left the country late on Saturday and others departed yesterday, foreign ministry spokesman Lars Thuesen said. Those who had not yet left were advised to stay indoors “until we have found a way to get them out of there”, he said. The Danish government is not currently providing transport for those wanting to leave but has offered assistance, he said. Thuesen said some Danes were reluctant to leave Syria as the situation appeared to calm down somewhat yesterday. But the foreign ministry insisted: “The situation is still critical for Danes there. Those who opt to stay must be very careful”. “We have been working all night to contact our people and get them out (of Syria),” Norwegian foreign ministry spokesman Oeystein Boe said. Of the up to 90 Norwegian nationals in Syria, 12 left Damascus for Oslo via Vienna, while 26 Norwegian families opted to stay in Syria for now. Norwegian embassy staff, including the ambassador, were operating from a hotel in the Syrian capital under police protection. Following the violent protest in Syria and further attacks in Lebanon, where the Danish embassy was set ablaze, Norway told all its embassies in Muslim countries to tighten security. “We have sent out a precaution order to embassies in the Middle East and other countries with a large Muslim population to review their security contingency plans, to get in touch with the authorities and ask for extended security,” Boe said. Norway also told its nationals living in Lebanon to remain indoors but has not, as yet, advised them to leave the country. Denmark’s Stig Moeller said he was worried about the proportions the protests had taken. “It is now a case that is much bigger than the issues of the drawings. Forces outside the political systems are now setting the agenda,” he said. Stig Moeller said he had asked the Syrian and Lebanese governments to investigate the events, which he said went beyond damaging the relationship between those governments and Denmark. “It’s damaging the whole diplomatic system if countries cannot be sure that their embassies are safe,” he said. Meanwhile, hundreds of Danes gathered in Copenhagen yesterday to appeal for “peaceful dialogue” to resolve the row. Local artists, couples and families assembled on the capital’s main square in a demonstration that organisers said was “apolitical and independent of different religious beliefs and cultures”. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #4 It's Bat Yeor, wxjames. Or at least that's her pseudonym. Given her subject matter, it hasn't been safe for her to be open about her identity. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-02-06 21:58 |
| #3 This a good opportunity for the Danes and Norge to deport all those guests from the Levant. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-02-06 08:46 |
| #2 Welcome aboard, Lone Ranger. I read the writing on the walls when I read Bat Yor's (spelling) report on Dhimmitude and Europe's acceptence of same. The time is now. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2006-02-06 07:30 |
| #1 In a rational world, it would probably be time for all westerners to permanently depart Islamic lands - and stop doing buisiness with them - in totality. Unfortunately, due to the crude petroleum situation, the west is accursedly tied to those barbarian lands. I wonder if there are ANY armament or ammunition manufacturers within the Islamic world? Let the Islamic world descend back ino the 12th Century - as they are so fervently seeking. Expel all practitioners of Islam from all western nations - to spare them the "vulgarities" of 21st Century life. Let them all go back to 12th Century life spans, and 12th Century standards of infant mortality, medical care, nutrition, and technology. When I "connect the dots" of increasingly bizarre and savage behavior by ever-increasing numbers of Muslims, in ever more widespread locations, against ever-broadening populations of targets, it is CRYSTAL CLEAR what lies ahead, if the West meekly allows the current violent absurdities to stand, with only "polite regrets." Twenty or thirty years hence, surviving civilized people are going to look back on the leaders of the civilized world in 2006, and ask themselves "what were those leaders THINKING to allow what was then the festering pestilence iof Islam to grow in strength to become the murderous plague of the mid-21st Century. Pandering to the sensitivities of the Islamic barbarians is doing one thing only: Helping them toward achieving their goal of imposing upon the population of earth a 12th Century, Sharia-based theocracy. Nothing less - and that is without even a HINT of exaggeration. The western world will NEVER have a better posture with respect to winning the Clash of Civilizations than it has today - February 6, 2006. Next week, Islam will be a modicum stronger, and the West an iota weaker. It is absurd. They know that they are in a battle of annihilation (or - at best - forced assimilation). They must be absolutely astonished at the naiive blundering of the leaders of the Infidel world - allowing those who are its sworn enemy to grow in strength. Until today, I restrained myself from openly and decisively advocating global genocide of the Islamic culture and religion. That time has now come - if, indeed, it is not already too late. It is them or us. Progress into an improving and enlightened world future, or descent into a brutal medieval theocracy. Those are the two choices. Connect the dots - The binary nature of choices becomes clear. |
| Posted by: Lone Ranger 2006-02-06 06:09 |