Slippages, manipulated data and suppressed facts: a huge media campaign accompanies the case of former Danish immigration minister Inger Stoejberg, who was sentenced to an unprecedented 60 days in prison, trying to discredit the politician who saved the masses of underage girls as best as possible.

“I will not apologize. I don't think I did anything wrong. I hope that every responsible person would have acted exactly as I did", very few media outlets quoted the determined politician's words, which she made during the court hearing.

"Something is very wrong"

Inger Stoejberg, who during her term of office consistently prevented the practice of immigration from distant continents and countries, which had developed in countries with no respect for European civilization standards, from continuing in Denmark as well, enabled tens of thousands of migrants, girls and teenagers who were forced into child marriage to find acceptable living conditions. .

"Something is very wrong if little girls cannot be protected from the disgusting phenomenon of child marriage," Stoejberg was quoted as saying by the American news portal Bretibart. During the trial, the former minister added: "I accept my punishment, and I do it without feeling ashamed."

The former immigration and integration minister, who held the post between 2015 and 2019, was found guilty on Monday of breaching the Ministerial Responsibility Act for briefly separating couples - predominantly male migrants with underage wives - at the height of Europe's migrant crisis. In 2016, Stoejberg separated 18 couples after ruling that migrant girls and teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 could not be placed in the same refugee facility as their "husbands", most of whom were well into adulthood. According to the report of the Danish television station TV2, the basis of the judge's verdict is that the separation of the couples proved to be contrary to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and several points of Danish administrative law.

Stoejberg reacted to the verdict: " I have to say that I was very, very surprised." He also added that "Danish values ​​lost" in court.

Manipulation

These measures are discussed by all the bodies reporting on the judgment as "separation of married couples".

2016 report in the Times claimed that in at least two cases the girls were as young as 14, and that one 14-year-old girl was married off to a 28-year-old man.

In the same year, press sources reported that the authorities in Germany detected around 1,000 child marriages , while it is estimated that this type of marriages among migrants is many times that number.

In February 2016, Breitbart's London edition reported that dozens of child "wives" were spotted by the authorities in Norway among the migrant masses, the youngest of whom was only 11 years old. In the Netherlands, a 14-year-old girl, Fatema Alkasem, who was nine months pregnant, and her 24-year-old "husband" disappeared from the authorities.

The Dutch organ called Detector (dr.dk), which is now publishing "revealing articles" detailed the the fate of one of the girls forced into child marriage.

The newspaper reports that an Iranian migrant "couple", where the girl forced into marriage was under 15, arrived in Denmark in early September 2015 and lived together in Center Sandholm in Allerod.

The little girl has not yet reached the minimum age of 15, which is the legal minimum age for sexual life according to Danish law. Despite this, the social worker of the Allerød municipality believed that the little girl living in a "marital relationship" was in the best place with her 28-year-old (or self-professed) husband, who was also the little girl's cousin.

The Detector newspaper asked the Danish immigration service whether the couple would have separated if Inger Støjberg had not been the Minister of Immigration at the time. The immigration service did not respond to this, citing that the girl was 14 years old at the time, and therefore the Detektor should present an authorization from the girl in order to be able to make a statement on her case.

As it turned out later, the little girl filed for divorce against her "husband". The representative of the children's center dealing with her told the newspaper: this opportunity opened the eyes of the little girl to the perspective of being able to live the life of an average, normal teenager. By the way, the girl said: the marriage was actually arranged by her father when the child passed his primary school exams at the age of 13 - even though he "wasn't willing" to get married at first. The article does not go into how the child, who was almost still a child, was forced to marry.

BBC News, on the other hand, highlights a single case: they write about a young Syrian couple, "Rimaz Alkayal, 17 at the time, and his 26-year-old spouse, Alnour Alwan", who were "forced to live apart" for four months, even though the "woman" she was pregnant.

The entire article can be read at hirado.hu

Cover photo:
Danish Minister of Immigration Inger Stoejberg arrives at the informal meeting of the ministers of interior and justice of the EU member states in Innsbruck on July 12, 2018. Starting July 1, Austria will hold the presidency of the European Union for half a year. (MTI/EPA/Daniel Kopatsch)