A parallel society where imams or other powerful people sentence delinquent Muslims and where the Danish state of law stands aside. That is a reality in many places in the country, say several sources to Berlingske Tidende.
Police in the Vollsmose neighborhood of Odense revealed in Information magazine Saturday that about 90% of all complaints to the police are dropped. Instead the conflicts are solved without the police and the courts.
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The Information article is based on eyewitness reports, interviews with sources close to the pedophilia suspect and the imams in Vollsmose, community police and criminologists. The attack occurred last fall, but the matter has been smouldering ever since. [ed: the story is somewhat summarized].
Among Vollsemose's gray concrete buildings, a middle aged man and his three year old son get out of a car. Hand in hand they go over to a little shopping center. The man looks down as several of his acquaintances sit down in front of a halal-butcher.
Only when he's called, he forces his eyes up, and he sees a guy holding a silver-grey cellphone in his hand.
"Is this your voice on the recording?" calls the guy in Arabic. He points the cellphone at the man. "Is this your voice?" The man looks surprised but finds the words. "Yes, but it was just for fun, so won't you be sweet and delete it from your phone?" Smiling the man reaches for the phone.
The smile disappears when he sees the man staring at him. The man's arm tightens and he raises his voice , grabbing the other man's shirt. From the greengrocer's a man comes out, grabs the little son's arm and brings him back to the car he's just come out of. While the boy is flung inside, he father hits the asphalt, while he's kicked and beaten.
The curtains are pulled aside in the windows of the surrounding buildings. More men come out. The neighborhood boys receive SMSs that there are riots. they come out fast and from all directions. An audience which doesn't interfere in the drama.
After several minutes the beating stops. The man lies still on the ground, but the cries continue around him. He finally gets up and drags himself back to his car, turns the keys and backs out of the parking lot with his crying son in the backseat.
A recorded phone call has for some time gone around among residents of the Odense ghetto of Vollsmose. The recording is of a conversation between a 10-year old boy and an adult man, both of Palestinian origin living in the neighborhood, where the man talks about the boys private parts, asks him when he will go out with him on a drive and ends by telling the boy not to speak about it.
But the name and sexual undertones were recorded on the boy's phone. Like high-technology dominoes, the recording tumbled through bluetooth onto the closed, local network which exists among the residents of Vollsmose. Suspicion of pedophilia spreads.
Many in Vollsmose are believing Muslims and according to the Koran and Arab tradition pedophilia is punished harshly. Several times in the following weeks the residents take the law into their own hands and beat the man. The police in the neighborhood isn't surprised since it's not the first time such things happen.
Torben Aagaard, a police agent in the local police station, says that many of the residents are used to having imams and older men take care of disagreements and therefore they don't turn to the police but find instead an alternative solution.
The case continues and the rumors buzz around. The man will be hanged, according to some rumors. He will have his nose cut off with shears, according to others. He therefore flees to Germany on advice of both the police and close friends who seriously fear for his life.
The recording doesn't only bring up anger, but also memories. Several witnesses tell the police how they can remember being abused by the man when they were children and he was their football coach.
The police start working on the case and begin to prepare a long report which they expect will be used to convict the suspect.
Several days later, about 40 Palestinian men meet in one of the houses in Vollsemose. Three of Vollsmose's Arab imams are there: Abu Hassan, Abu Bashar and Abu Lahmin and they all start to debate the pedophilia suspect.
There are many opinions: that he was a pedophile for many years, that it can't be, that he should be kicked out of Vollsmose, that he should stay so that he doesn't attack children elsewhere, that he did it, that he's a good man, that he's sick.
After an hour's time, an older, highly-respected gentleman comes up with a suggestion, which is accepted by all. Imam Abu Hassan, with his power as a religious authority, rewords the decision, adding citations from the Koran and speaks so long that nobody asks questions anymore.
The men agree that the suspect had never committed any other crime, and that some in the ghetto have certainly done it, which is worse. People shouldn't throw stones if they live in an apartment with glass windows, stresses one of the participants.
The suspect can therefore stay in Vollsmose, when he comes home from Germany. But he will know that what he's done is wrong. Some think the man is sick and that the whole family needs support. One of the imams will teach the family about Islam.
In the end the meeting decides that the case will be closed. When people don't know the truth, they should let Allah find it. Even the prophet didn't talk about things he didn't know the truth of, points out one of the imams.
The rumors, gossip and accusations will stop. Already the same evening everybody will tell their family and friends that they should not talk more about the man and the suspicions. The women will understand that they should not talk about it on the street corners and children shouldn't talk about it in the schoolyard. The message of silence will also be spread at Friday prayers in the mosques of Vollsmose.
An hour and a half of heated sentencing. the discussion is over. The men leave the house in agreement and each go back to his own residence.
Among the concrete walls, men seldom turn with conflicts to the police. The Danish punishment system is bureaucratic and slow compared with the powerful, local network. When the police cases are finally closed there will always be a winner and a loser, a basis for new conflicts.
The imams in Vollsmose solve conflicts in a completely different way. By reaching an agreement, the parties in the disagreement can shake hands and go their separate ways without being bitter. the imams are called in day and night, and so conflicts are solved before they reach the police.
After the meeting the police had to give up the pedophilia case. Several witnesses changed their statements. They remembered wrong, they said about the humiliating experiences that they trust the police with a few days earlier. The criminal police tells the local police that there is concrete evidence, but without evidence the accusation is insubstantial.
In Vollsmose the practice is so widespread that the police station today has implemented a new procedure for complaints. In order to prevent work going to waste, they listen to what people have to say but ask them to come again the next day if they want to continue with lodging the complaint. Most don't come again.
It's well known that people among some ethnic minorities of Arabic culture cultivate this type of local jurisprudence.
Anette Storgaard, a criminologist from Aarhus University, says that there's no research that shows that why it's linked. But it's clear that religion can be an alternative source of law which determines what is a crime and what punishment should be given. The dilemma starts when minorities choose their own interpretation of Islam instead of Danish law.
In Vollsmose the imams rules with their own interpretation of Islam and cultural traditions, the police therefore use many resources to remain a recognized authority in the community. They dress in civil cloths and play pool in the youth club to convince the youth that they can trust the police.
Torben Aagaard says that in the past they had a reasonable view of what happened in the area, but after the police reform there aren't enough resources to keep tabs on what's happening.
Thirteen blocks away from the little local police station, a man comes out of a building and sees a "you will move out of here" spray-painted across from his house. He quickly contacts a close friend and neighbor. The friend says it's boy's tricks and they quickly make sure to remove the graffiti. Nobody contacts the police. Several in the area accepted the situation around the pedophilia suspect, but others still call him names or avoid talking to him.
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Torben Aagard, a police agent working in the Odense neighborhood, says that there are criminals who are never punished by Danish law. He says that there's a legal parallel society which makes it very hard for the police to do their job. Naturally there are many who live by Danish law but as long as they don't dare file complaints against others, it's very hard to do anything. He thinks money, honor, threats and sometimes also violence are used to try to solve conflicts internally within the Muslim communities.
Resident's chairman Mohammed Aslam from Mjølnerparken in Copenhagen confirms to Berlingske Tidende that the phenomenon of a law system without the police is extensive. In Mjølnerparken people use a method where children and youth who have committed vandalism pay the aggrieved a settlement.
Mohammed Aslam says that it's meant to give the youth a chance, so they don't get into jail and become more criminal. He stresses that he doesn't know that the phenomenon is organized and that he himself wouldn't get involved in serious cases such as the pedophilia case in Vollsmose.
Integration consultant Manu Sareen is appalled and says such things don't belong in a constitutional state, having several amateur judges in a basement. Naturally it's ok for people to solve small disagreements on their own, but we're now seeing that people solve domestic violence, rapes etc. It's not proper and is a very unfortunate development. Manu Sareen thinks that imams send a bad message in particular to young immigrants not to rely on the police, the Danes and on the constitutional state in general.
He says that instead there's a need to show that Denmark is their land, and that the problems will be solved in a modern context. Not through a strange, traditional access to society, he says and calls for more dialog between residents, police and social workers.
Imam Abu Bashar of Odense denies that punishments are given out. He says it's 100% wrong. Most of their work is about problems in families or between couples. the imams get involved only in social problems and criminal problems are left to the police and the courts, he told DR.
According to Abu Bashar imams solve many forms of conflicts: neighborhood spats, problems between couples and other conflicts. People respect what the imams say, but they don't think so of the police. He didn't want to comment about violence but said that it's a part of the culture to listen to the imam and therefore imams have a lot of power, more than the police in some contexts.
Sources:
Berlingske, Information
1,
2 (Danish)
