Human Rights

19-year-old Jelena Bundalovic questions whether the citizenship test is the best way to determine an individual’s ‘Danishness’

Jelena might have been born and lived her whole life in Denmark, but it brings her no closer to gaining Danish citizenship (Photo: Peter Stanners)

Almost a quarter of a million adults living in Denmark can’t vote in the upcoming election. Jelena Bundalovic is one of them. Born in Hvidovre Hospital, she went to Danish primary school at Ryparken Lilleskole and completed high school at Ørestad Gymnasium last year. Now 19 and living on her own in Nørrebro, this would the first election she could participate in. But she’s Serbian, and after failing the citizenship test last year, she cannot place an X next to her favourite candidate on Thursday.

“I’m a happy person but sometimes it makes me feel sad,” she told the Copenhagen Post on Blågårds Plads in Nørrebro last Sunday.

“Coming up to the election, everyone is talking about who they’re gong to vote for and I would like to be a part of it. I could watch the debates and meet the politicians around the city but I don’t need to because I can’t vote,” she said.

“I should be part of the democracy but I’m an outsider for no reason really.” (more…)

A clinic has opened in Copenhagen that will only treat illegal immigrants, formally known as undocumented migrants. I spoke to the manager of the clinic to find out more.

Vibeke Lenskjold from the Red Cross in Denmark runs the clinic. She believes only healthy people are in a condition to find their own way home (Photo: Peter Stanners)

Tucked away in the corner of a quiet courtyard off Revenstlowgade beside the central station is a private health clinic. Its clients aren’t wealthy or famous, but you still need to be special to be seen. The clinic only takes in people who – for whatever reason – are illegally resident in Denmark. In fact, it’s the only place in the country where they can be treated.

Vibeke Lenskjold from the Red Cross in Denmark, who runs the clinic, invited the Copenhagen Post to take a look around this Monday. Sitting in the reception of the clinic, she explained that while some politicians were outraged at the opening of a health clinic for illegal immigrants, all the Red Cross in Denmark cared about was that there were people who needed help but weren’t receiving it.

“It’s at the heart of what we do – humanitarian help for people in need. We don’t care who they are, if they need help they must have it,” Lenskjold said. (more…)

Drug produced by Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck is being used to execute prisoners – Human rights organisation Reprieve  says there is little it can do.

Death-row inmates in the US are to be executed using an anti-epilepsy drug produced by Lundbeck, after the Copenhagen-based company last week decided against forcing its distributors to sign contracts preventing them from supplying prisons.

Lundbeck's decsion opens the door for prision offiicals to use the company's drug in lethal executions (File photo: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitiation)

Lundbeck has already expressed shock that its product is set to be used in executions and has written letters to officials in US states planning to use the drug for executions saying they are “adamantly opposed to the use of Nembutal for the purpose of capital punishment”.

“We urge you to discontinue the use of Nembutal in the execution of prisoners in your state because it contradicts everything we are in business to do – provide therapies that improve people’s lives.”

Lundbeck holds the only license to manufacture pentobarbital in the US, where it is marketed as Nembutal and used to treat seizures. (more…)