

Birgitta Jonsdottir on why Iceland is not a good destination for Snowden - teawithcarl
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rkvqor

======
_delirium
This is an interesting point:

 _the Minister fears that if he will be granted asylum, Iceland might have to
show humanitarianism in action by transforming its poor treatment towards
asylum seekers who seek shelter in Iceland_

While Iceland is generally liberal on social issues, they've traditionally
been quite closed on immigration. That's partly been helped by their
geographic isolation, but in recent years there has been an increase in
refugees attempting to claim asylum in Iceland (e.g. fleeing the Syrian civil
war), and Iceland has generally not granted those requests. So perhaps they
are worried that if they start granting some kinds of political asylum they
will have to grant others to be consistent.

~~~
coldtea
> _While Iceland is generally liberal on social issues, they 've traditionally
> been quite closed on immigration._

Should they be more open, though?

They have a nice society going on, their way of life, customs and traditions,
they want to keep having them. Would an influx of immigrants help?

It's not like every place is like the US (a vast country with room to spare,
composed by tons of different ethnicities, living on the land of the previous
inhabitants, and with a powerful enough economy to assimilate a lot of
immigrants). Not to mention: the US immigrants came to the place in ages of
SLOW transportation and over a period of 400 years (with some ramping up in
the 20th century). Nowadays, especially in Europe, immigration ramps up in a
couple of decades or less. And, given the huge numbers, they don't even need
to be assimilated that much -- if you can work in a place with millions of
fellow X-speaking immigrants, and easy access to websites, tv etc in your
language, why bother to learn english or change your habits at all?

Consider a thought experiment: would the US be OK with an influx of 100, 200
or 300 million immigrants from islamic countries? Not terrorists, mind you.
Just normal folks, that, nonetheless, would soon wish their practices and
mindset be respected and reflected in laws (and, since they would be able to
vote, it would be): from the right to beat their wives or persecute gays, to
refusing education to their daughters? And even darker stuff like "honour
killings" that would be sure to want to bring to their new country?

Now, 30% is a lot to be realistic. But if immigration was "open to all", it
wouldn't be that far off. Especially since, in the US, almost 100% are
immigrants anyway (just over the course of centuries, not over the course of a
decade or so). There are places in Europe where the immigrant population rose
to 10% or 20% in a course of a couple decades.

~~~
anu_gupta
> nonetheless, would soon wish their practices and mindset be respected and
> reflected in laws (and, since they would be able to vote, it would be): from
> the right to beat their wives or persecute gays, to refusing education to
> their daughters? And even darker stuff like "honour killings" that would be
> sure to want to bring to their new country?

What is this bigoted nonsense doing on HN?

Those of you upvoting this should be ashamed of yourselves.

PS. Most Muslims don't want to beat their wives or deny their daughters an
education, nor do they want to engage in 'honor killings. If you think they
do, you probably also think that the Westboro Baptist Church is an adequate
proxy for average Christian beliefs.

~~~
coldtea
> _What is this bigoted nonsense doing on HN?_

I was about to ask something similar. What is your comment, a content-free mix
of accusations and insults, doing in HN?

As for your accusations:

What exactly is "bigoted" about what I wrote? People from cultural backgrounds
less developed with regards to women's issues (as one example), don't
magically become tolerant and feminist when they immigrate to another country.

Honour killings are a real thing -- I can point you to tons of articles on the
issue. Here's an example:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyunVoRKL8k](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyunVoRKL8k)

And they are related to muslim communities [that's what the police reports
say]. Europeans, especially in rural areas, might have done similar things
back in the day (nearly a century ago), but not many (actually none) modern
Italians, Frenchmen, Dutch etc even consider the notion appropriate, much less
practice such things as honour killings in 2013.

> _PS. Most Muslims don 't want to beat their wives or deny their daughters an
> education, nor do they want to engage in 'honor killings'._

Did anybody say it was "most muslims" doing it? And does it have to be 51% or
close for it to matter? I don't even want 5% doing it.

Not to mention that there ARE muslim countries in which most people DO "deny
their daughters and education".

But besides those things there are other issues, such as: the role of women,
attitudes towards sex and sexual imagery, attitudes towards civic law, freedom
of speech (including religious satire), etc. If they were totally OK with
civic law in a democratic society, they wouldn't push for separate religious
(sharia) courts in Western countries.

> _Those of you up-voting this should be ashamed of yourselves._

Condescending, pro-censorship and abusive. That's your answer to my "bigotry"?

------
TheBiv
I will take all of this at face value, but the greater point is something that
she mentioned at the end; that the political smearing/prosecution of
whistleblowers has to stop. Good on you Ms. Jonsdottir!

~~~
at-fates-hands
As much as I'm for what he did and revealing the Prism program, he stopped
being a whistleblower when he released top secret, classified documents.

There's a ton of different ways to prove what the NSA was doing without
leaking a mountain of classified documents.

~~~
twentysix
No, there wasn't any alternate way to do it.

Watch the three guys who tried to do it via official channels, explain why it
doesnt work and why they think he did the right thing.

[http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowd...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-
whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/)

~~~
gruseom
One detail from that interview that didn't get much attention: when those guys
went through official channels inside NSA and brought their allegations of
wrongdoing to the Inspector General, the Inspector General recommended
criminal prosecution _of them_. From the article:

 _Jesselyn Radack: Not only did they go through multiple and all the proper
internal channels and they failed, but more than that, it was turned against
them. ... The inspector general was the one who gave their names to the
Justice Department for criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act._

------
tiatia
I disagree. It was Iceland which did not bail out its banks, said a nice "FU"
to its foreign account holders and has now economic growth (Iceland expanded
4.60 percent in the first quarter of 2013 over the previous quarter).

It was also Iceland which gave Bobby Fisher a passport.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer#Asylum_in_Iceland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer#Asylum_in_Iceland)

You must give the vikings one thing: They've got balls!

Looks like a perfect destination for Snowden in my opinion.

~~~
TheBiv
I know very little, but on the surface, granting asylum for a chess player is
a different beast than granting asylum for someone who dispelled NSA secrets.

~~~
gwern
And Fischer had brought world attention to Iceland during the famous chess
match; in contrast, Snowden lacks even that tenuous connection.

------
skaevola
I don't think he's facing the death penalty. According to this article he
faces a maximum of 10 years on each charge:

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732368350457856...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323683504578562852310273818.html?mod=e2tw)

------
mtgx
Isn't it strange that the "most democratic" countries are the ones that will
be the _first_ to offer him up to the US government?

~~~
3pt14159
Not really. During the cold war the vast majority of "democratic" countries
were either allied with, or close trading partners with, the United States.
This lead to the increasing strengthening of ties between both countries
foreign intelligence services and judicial systems.

Given that the US has a _burn the fields_ type of policy with all but their
largest trading partners, only the very large countries are able to use the
case of Snowden to their advantage. Hong Kong was especially good, since it
provided the best of both worlds: Very liberal media, with Chinese backing in
terms of political pressure.

The only reason that _some_ small countries are able to afford long term
sanction to Snowden and Assange, is that they are already antagonistic towards
the United States, so there is nothing that the US can really take away from
them.

Iceland is a bit a strange case since it is generally aligned with the west,
but it hasn't really taken steps to integrate as closely as other countries,
partially because of its isolation and Norway being a proxy for these
decisions for so long. Ultimately though it isn't in Iceland's interests to
take in Snowden, it will cause too much of a backlash.

~~~
mtgx
Yes, I get why they aren't doing it _strategically_ , but they're supposed to
be _democratic countries_ and protect this sort of stuff on its own merits,
not depending on what's their relationship with the country where the
whistleblower is coming from.

~~~
_delirium
Most democratic countries have a very nation-state-oriented view of democracy,
where it's a group of people who rule themselves democratically. That tends to
lead towards emphasizing citizenship a lot, so e.g. many European countries
would be _much_ stricter about conditions under which they'd extradite one of
their own citizens. But Snowden isn't one of their citizens, so falls in a
different category of basically "not our responsibility".

