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In Denmark the secret police have made an administrative decision to expel two Tunesian citizens with long-term residence status and families on the grounds that their presence is 'endangering national security'. The Danish secret police suspect the two Tunesians of planning to kill the cartoonist who made the cartoon of the Prophet Muhamed which was published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten two years ago. The secret police claim that they prevented the plan from being carried out.

With the new 'terror legislation', which was introduced in Denmark after 9/11 2001, the State, i.e. the secret police, have the power to decide to expel or detain any foreigner without a court order or a decision from a judge. What worries many Danes now is that the detainee and the accused is not permitted to know what he or she is accused of, and worst of all is that his/her defence lawyer is kept in the dark too.

This gives the secret police unlimited powers to ignore the normal procedures in a democratic society like Denmark which has been known in modern times to be founded solidly on the rule of law and with respect for basic human rights.

Since the Liberal/Conservative Government, with the strong support of the hardcore right-wing Danish People's Party, came to power in 2001, Denmark has changed from being a homogenous and balanced society with fairly equal rights and welfare for all into a multi-cultural society where the gap between rich and poor is constantly widening, and the marginalized Danes - often with another ethnic, cultural and religious background than Danish - are feeling left out and considered second or third rate citizens.

This, coupled with increasing racism, discrimination, police harassment, the gradual dismantling of the Welfare State, and the reprinting by several Danish newspapers of the cartoons, may well be the ignition that lit the recent riots in Copenhagen which spread to other cities all over the country.

Radical Muslims are shouting in the streets, and the the extremists are openly calling for taking over the Democratic State and introduce a Khalifat Dictatorship in Denmark. The first bomb explosion of a shop sent shock waves through the normally very peaceful Danish community, and the situation threatens to develop into a polarization dividing the population into two categories: Us and Them.

Cars, school buildings and institutions across the country were set on fire, and police and firebrigades are attacked in a fury which has taken the Danish authorities by surprise and have paralized the politicians who were reluctant to break-off from their winter holidays and tackle the crisis which at one stage was feared to result in the necessity of introducing a State of Emergency and to bring in the Military to control the rioting.

The reprinting of the cartoons is seen by many with Muslim bagground as a provocation which is meant to hurt and to rub salt in the wound which has not had sufficient time to heal since the first publication of the cartoons. It may be even more unfortunate that they are published on top of the recent media focus on the clandestine CIA abductions of terror suspects and the landings on Danish soil.

That has called on feelings of horror, fury and outrage - mostly perhaps because it has been downplayed by the Danish government that they have been aware of these landings and that they have chosen to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear.

It gets worse when unnamed intelligence sources reveal that US Airforce flights have been landing in military airports in Denmark and in Danish controlled Greenland at the Thule Base since 1976, and that the US personnel using the airport facilities were armed which is a violation of Danish sovereignty.

As one intelligence source is saying: "It would have been impossible for the Danish authorities not to know what was going on because the aircraft were so badly camouflaged that the paint didn't even cover the print "US Air Force"."

That means that successive Danish governments since 1976 have silently condoned these flights, use of Danish airspace and illegal landings, however, whether the flights have been carrying prisoners for export to countries outside the democratic hemisphere, is not known and may never be, but certainly the focus on the CIA ghost rendition flights is extremely embarrassing for the Danish government who still refuse to admit to having known about the landings or misuse of Danish airspace.

The Danish government has chosen to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Bush administration and has employed troop contingents in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan where the Danish troops are stationed in the most dangerous area in the Helmand Province where they have suffered several casualtues due to fierce fighting with Taliban insurgents.

There is speculation that the Danish government has silently condoned the CIA landings on Danish soil for fear of losing not only goodwill, but lucrative business contracts, from the US, however not much criticism is coming forward in the Danish mainstream media which are heavily controlled by an invisible state censorship and self censorship - so the much celebrated 'freedom of speech' and 'freedom of the press' have their limitations.

Apart from a widespread indifference in the Danish society - at least on the part of the more well-to-do Danes who have made their fortunes on high housing prices and low taxes - there are clear signs of a fear of expressing oneself freely for fear of being blacklisted by the authorities and by the bureaucracy which is very much running the lives of all Danes in the increasing Big Brother society which is so easily done in a detail regulated community such as Denmark.

In the name of 'National Security' any atrocity and abominable torture method, psychological and physical, has been approved by the world's foremost democracy the US, and it has been accepted without major protests in democracies throughout the world. What is worse is that it continues right under our noses under the holy banner "War on Terror" which is playing on the fear of mankind. With the street guerilla tactics used in burning the Danish cities, we can only expect extreme hardline methods and that the more tolerant and understanding part of the population will side with the hardcore groups.

The fear, and in this case a very justified fear, gives us the excuse to abolish all thoughts of human rights and to give purchase on such old-fashioned values as 'crimes against humanity' and the Geneva Convention. These were the very same ethic laws and conventions that we, the 'civilised countries' and the victors of World War II, condemned the German Nazis to death for having violated at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-46.

We, the 'civilised ones' in the West, make lots of noise and even invade other countries when their governments don't abide by these rules, but when our own governments and their secret services use the same abominable methods against their real or invented 'enemies', we prefer to downplay this dangerous slide in our democratic and civil rights which are disappearing faster than we can grasp.

The "War on Terror", which President George W. Bush launched after 9/11, and which brought about the Patriot Act curbing the civil rights of all American citizens - and which was copied by other western democraties - has been compared to the abolishment of the Constitution and the rule of law in the Weimar Republic shortly before Hitler came to power.

The outcry in 1945, after the revelations of the horrors committed in the concentration camps and in the nazi occupied countries in Europe, was loud and clear, and we and our elected leaders swore that this must never happen again.

Yet, since 2001, the most horrendous middle-age torture methods are constantly being employed behind closed doors, in cellars and in camps, with our knowledge. With the knowledge of our political leaders, our administrations and our media. Our democratic governments pretend they don't know about CIA rendition landings on their ground, and by turning a blind eye and a deaf ear they think that they cannot be held responsible.

Our governments must take responsibility for letting this happen, and so must we, the people in the democratic nations, and so must every single one of us. If we don't take responsible action and demand from our governments to stop this and to close down the US concentration camp at Guantanamo, and other camps that are used as torture chambers in other countries, we must be judged too along with our leaders.

This was what happened to the German people after World War II. The Germans, who lived under a Nazi dictatorship which allowed no freedom of press or of speech, were condemned along with their leaders by all other nations. The German people, who had also suffered greatly during the War, had to live with hatred and alienation for decades only because the majority of the Germans had apparently remained passive and done nothing to prevent the Holocaust and the crimes against humanity.

But what could anyone have done in a country ruled by such an iron fist as the Nazi regime? Nothing in the open certainly. But it should not be forgotten that untold hundreds of Germans, individually and in the many resistance groups, carried out an enormous humanitarian work which saved hundreds and thousands of innocent people from ending their lives in a concentration camp. This was a gigantic operation which started already in 1942 and which naturally had to be kept absolute secret in order not to risk being exposed.

Not much has changed, and it seems that the ghosts of Nazism, Fascism and Wahabism are breathing their cold air down our necks leaving us numb and cold when it comes to compassion and understanding with other people's sufferings.

The unfortunate persons, who often appear to be picked at random by the CIA, are taken away from their families, blindfolded, handcuffed and chained, beaten up and flown out of their countries to unknown destinations where they are tortured systematically, often for years, until they sign a statement of 'guilt' prepared by their captors.

Currently our media are focusing intensely on the illegal CIA flights as if they have been launched after 9/11. But the fact is that the abduction programme was signed by President Bill Clinton who had no qualms about condoning the programme.

Like today, the authorities in the countries where the CIA ghost flighs landed, turned a blind eye and pretended not to see, not to hear, not to know and not to act.

Do we really want to sacrifice our freedom and our hard-earned civil rights, which our elders fought so hard for during two World Wars? In the 1930s the Jews were the 'sacrifical lambs' - men, women and children who needed to be exterminated in order to quell our innermost fears - like the 'witches' whom we thought we needed to burn at the stake for the sake of our peace of mind.

In this age of information and hi-tech our lives and our security are quite obviously threatened by extremism and radicalism from many groups, but also by a new and invented 'Enemy of the State'. The Muslims have all come under suspicion of being 'terrorists' or 'would-be terrorists', and with the assistance of our mainstream media, the politicians have made a highly successful propaganda to promote themselves and their policies and to spread paranoia.

With all this hysteria and the following violence and riots, we are easy to manipulate and control, and we end up believing that the necessary evil is to sacrifice and lose - not only our freedom - but also our humanity.

One wonders: Who is our real enemy - the terrorists and fanatics, the secret police, the CIA torturers, who may end up terrorizing us all with their police state methods - or our own fears?

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