Iceland review - 2007, Síða 11

ICELAND REVIEW 9
Views of Iceland | IR 4.07 | Vol. 45
this quarter’s news from your favorite island nation
Compiled by Eygló Svala Arnarsdóttir
weapons and drugs. Following these operations,
Minister of Justice Björn Bjarnason sent an an­
nouncement to the headquarters of the European
Council of Ministers about the tightened border
control at Keflavík, which was to be effective
from the afternoon of November 1 until midnight
November 4, Morgunbladid reported November 2.
Police were given orders to arrest and deport all
Hells Angels members who arrived at the airport
that weekend regardless of their criminal re­
cords, as reported in Morgunbladid November 4.
Norwegian members of the Hells Angels motor­
cycle club who have a clean criminal record and
were refused entry to Iceland have hired an Ice­
landic lawyer and are considering a lawsuit
against the Icelandic government, 24 stundir re­
ported November 7.
Their lawyer, Oddgeir Einarsson from the law
firm Opus, said his clients did not pose a threat to
nati o nal security and claimed their rights were
violated. The Icelandic police appear to classify all
clubs related to the Hells Angels as criminal orga­
nizations.
Einarsson said the Hells Angels do not have an
illegal purpose, the club is not banned in the
Nordic countries and has never been convicted of
a crime as an entity although individuals within
the club may have criminal records.
Major Amphetamine Bust in
East Iceland
Cooperation between the Icelandic police and EURO­
POL led to the confiscation of 56 kilograms of am­
phetamine aboard a yacht in Fáskrúdsfjördur har­
bor in east Iceland September 20.
The drug bust was the most extensive police
operation of its kind ever undertaken in Iceland,
Bladid reported September 21. Intelligence sources
were also used in Norway, the Faroe Islands, Den­
mark, Germany and the Netherlands.
Dozens of police officers around Iceland par­
ticipated in the investigation, dubbed “The Polar
Star,” including 25 special forces agents, members
of the Coast Guard and the Drug Department of
the Capital Region Police.
Iceland’s Minister of Justice Björn Bjarnason
said the drug bust indicates that supervision with
ships and aircraft destined for Iceland needs to be
tightened, adding that the operation had delive­
red successful results due to organizational chang­
es within the police authority.
Five Icelandic citizens were arrested in relation to
the case, ruv.is reported September 20. The investiga­
tion is ongoing.
Lawyer Sentenced to Prison for
Sex Crimes
On September 26, Reykjavík District Court sentenced
lawyer Róbert Árni Hreidarsson to three years in
prison for possession of child pornography and for
sexually violating four teenage girls, ages 14 to 16.
Hreidarsson was also disbarred and forced to pay
his victims ISK 2.2 million (USD 35,000, EUR 25,000)
in restitution and ISK 2.7 million (USD 43,000,
EUR 31,000) in legal fees, Morgunbladid reported
September 27.
Hreidarsson, 61, approached the girls via the online
chat program MSN Messenger, pretending to be 17.
He was aware that the girls had mental and social
problems and that some of them needed money to fi­
nance their drug habits.
Posing as a 17­year­old boy, Hreidarsson offered to
introduce the girls to an older man, himself, who
would pay them for sexual favors. He had sexual in­
tercourse with two of the girls and paid the others for
oral sex and exposing themselves in front of a web
camera.
Nearly 300 pictures and five video cassettes con­
taining child pornography were discovered during a
search of the man’s home.
Rerelease of “Ten Little Negro Boys”
Stirs Controversy
The recent republication of the children’s book Tíu lit-
lir negrastrákar (“Ten Little Negro Boys”), a translat­
ion of an American nursery rhyme first published in
Iceland in 1922, has caused considerable controversy.
The book, published by Skrudda, has already made
it to the bestseller list with 3,000 copies sold. It was
translated by Gunnar Egilsson and contains illustrati­
ons by the Icelandic artist Muggur (1891­1924).
Parents of children in ethnic minorities have writ­
ten a letter to kindergartens in the capital region en­
couraging them not to read the book to children since
they find both the text and images hurtful and likely
to trigger prejudice towards people of color, ruv.is re­
ported October 25.
During a meeting held October 25 at Ahús, the In­
tercultural Center in Reykjavík, Kristján B. Jónas son,
director of the Association of Icelandic Book Publish­
ers, said that publishing houses should have the free­
dom to republish books that are the products of their
time. Jónasson said the story is certainly not suitable
for children, but that it is the result of a historical
process that should not be erased, Fréttabladid re­
ported October 26.
Icelandic linguist Mördur Árnason also spoke dur­
ing the meeting and warned against “escaping
words” like negri (“negro”), which he said are not
pejorative in essence. In an interview later that day
on Stöd 2, Árnason clarified that the word in itself is
not pejorative, though a negative meaning may have
been superimposed on it on occasion, and more so in
English­speaking countries than in Iceland.