Bali is not a place to visit as a tourist

Being part of a country where death penalties are used should send a message to every tourist that this place is best to be left alone. Combine it with the fact that death penalties can be issued for other than murder is yet another signal. Combine it with the fact that even the legal process have flaws it should send a message not even to consider it for any travel purpose at all.

It is not that the so-called Bali 9 group faces executions. It is the arrest and imprisonment of two Australian women which prove that this Island is simply too dangerous for any person to visit. Schapelle Corby was arrested for smuggling drugs into Indonesia. No smuggler in the world would take drugs from where they are expensive to a place where they are cheap. The entire concept for drugs trafficking is based on profit. Her arrest and the Courts decision to destroy the evidence long before the legal process including appeals was over speak of a cover up.

Then taken into consideration that the arrest and deportation of the Australian top-model Michelle Leslie included extortion and possible political connections combined with the fact that she was forced to change faith in order to reduce the risk of sexual molestation or rape skips Bali as a tourist target entirely.

A message has been sent by the authorities in Bali: “We don’t want tourists here”

Please listen to their message so you don’t become their next victim.

Positive news but improvements can be achieved

Positive news has reached us during this winter break. Fewer students – only 900 compared to 8,000 the previous years – have chosen to go to Prague. The in general xenophobic population down there did send a message to tourists stating that they were not welcome in their town.

Still – 900 are too many. This number needs to be dropped so the students can party in Denmark where the taxation and the revenue from the sale of alcohol will benefit the Danish citizens and the industry which produce it. It is really a question about maintaining the employment rate.

Hopefully 2016 would be the year no Danish student will go abroad. There never was any cultural or internationally benefit from these trips. The marketing material provided from the Hotels showed a country without nothing other but pubs, bars and disco parties too offer. It was that culture which sold the Czech Republic and it proved to be false marketing.

It is kind of sad that the 900 students will experience a bad week but it is with these trips like Nigerian scam letters. There will always be some victims. It is question about informing the consumers hoping to make them aware of the dangers but you will never reach them all.

These years with many students abroad will result in a political reaction later this year where the Danish voters will be asked to enter a closer relationship with the European Union regarding police work and extradition processes. The shameful process where some students were sentenced to pay for damages despite the fact that they had escaped the Czech Republic has resulted in a massive outrage against any closer co-corporation with the European Union. It seems that something good would come from the ordeal the Danish students have been put through down there.

But for now we will just enjoy the fact that the Danish students will buy Danish when it comes to spending money on their winter break.

Reactions to the arrest of a young Dane in New York for crimes against children

A young Danish man has been charged and held without bail for alleged crimes against children. While the case not reached the courts yet his name is put up worldwide. Even if he is innocent his life is over. He will never be able to work with children again unless he is hired by a burger joint. He must settle with a McJob career.

Heine Ehlers wrote this comment in the New York Daily News:

When the news was reported in Denmark the reaction was: Can it be real? A few years ago Denmark extradited a Danish woman believed to be the kingpin behind a drug operation in Florida back in the 1990s when she went to the United States as an exchange student. A lot of effort was made to talk her into making a deal giving her a few years in prison instead of the 60 years she was facing. In the end she was acquitted but left with a lifelong debt as result of financing her defense. The charges were never real. It was a publicity stunt by the DEA.

I hope that the court can find justice in this case. The evidence seems not to be there but perhaps they are hoping that he would break due to his stay in jail so they can save their faces if he agrees some kind of deal.

Had the cameras picked anything up it would not be case but we are talking of a case based on slander and bullying from a cop. Regardless of the outcome of the case his reputation in both Denmark and the United States will be destroyed. That is how damaging it is to be accused of such a terrible crime.

The result of the old extradition case was that the Department of education in Denmark ceased to accredit exchange student agencies due to the lack of legal security. If this case is based on false charges also it is because he went to the United States without being lawyered up. It needs to be stopped just as American Exchange Student agencies have stepped up providing massive legal aid to exchange students studying in Italy. Young people should rather remain in their home-countries rather than exposing themselves to unnecessary risk abroad. A lot of human rights organizations in Denmark have started a campaign to lower or even put a stop to the traffic of young Danes taking a year abroad. No learning experience can justify this torment the young Dane has to go through now.

Heine Ehlers is right. The advice to young Danes is not to use part of their life working or studying abroad unless they have put thousand of dollars kept in spare just in case they should be involved in any interaction with local police agencies. The time is over when you could go to another country without thinking of the worst case scenario.

• Remember Camilla Broe who had to spent a year in prison before she was aquitted.
• Remember Louise Woodward who was unlucky to charged with a crime 10 years before the science could prove that she hadn't committed a crime
• Remember Amanda Knox who was prosecuted by a prosecutor himself found guilty for abuse of office

The list could be continued. Fact is that there are policemen and prosecutors out there being ready to built their career on charging innocent people for crimes they hadn't committed.

Be safe - stay at home unemployment or not - or lawyer up so the first sentence you will say even at a normal trafficstop would be "I wan't a lawyer"

Source:

• Woman who reported intern for sexually abusing Midtown preschoolers was fired, parents group head says allegations are ‘fishy’ (New York Daily News)