EYRARBAKKI TIMES
A blog about life and environment of the oldest village in Iceland + anything Icelandic
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Policy change at Samfylking
The Icelandic fish farming scandal
Tuesday, April 09, 2024
The PM abandons the sinking ship on the sea of inflation.
Thursday, March 07, 2024
Rat holes in Icelandic tourism
Sunday, March 03, 2024
The Prime Minister's party is disappearing
Monday, February 26, 2024
The SOLARIS Saves people from extinction
More than a hundred persons from Palestine, who have received a residence permit in Iceland, have been waiting for months for the help of the Icelandic government to escape the ethnic cleansing of the Israeli government.
The government has been inactive for months. People who live in this country and are desperately waiting for their families have repeatedly requested a conversation with the government. Its wishes have been almost exclusively rejected or not answered.
The SOLARIS Icelandic humanitarian organization has now managed to save the lives of 12 Palestinian people from Gaza on their own with public funding. Mostly women and children are in this group.
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
The minister closes the door - Icelandic politics III
Guðrún Hafsteinsdóttir, Member of Parliament for the South and Minister of Justice and Minister of Security, has approved changes to laws that limit the rights of foreigners in Iceland and increase the powers of the police to interfere with fellow citizens.
The minister is a member of the Independence Party, which is far to the right in Icelandic politics.
The new immigration law will prevent asylum seekers and refugees from having access to the country while their cases are being examined. It will also be prohibited to provide legal aid to these people. Closed sorting camps will be set up at the border (International Airport) those foreigners who do not qualify under the new law will be sent to closed departure camps until they can finance their own departure. There will be no possibility of communion with Icelandic society.
The new police law gives the police authority to investigate and intervene without reason or suspicion. In this way, the police can investigate foreigners with a residence permit without informing the person concerned. Police can also initiate extensive searches and background checks on protesters, opposition parties and political dissidents without their knowledge.
The coalition parties Left Green and the Progressive Party have approved these methods.
The People's Party, which has bred xenophobia, has welcomed this new law.
Samfylkinging party, which is a pro-European party, has changed its policy and now supports this law.
The pirate party, on the other hand, is opposed to this and considers the law offensive to human dignity.
Friday, February 16, 2024
The mask falls. Icelandic politics II
Racism and xenophobia have become a growing problem in Icelandic society. The lid has fallen off the wormhole and some political parties have dropped their masks.
The animosity is focused mainly on refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers after the main ruling party, the Independence Party, spoke out reference with restrictions on arrivals and deportation camps for foreigners.
The Central Party and the People's Party (extreme parties) have long shown their hostility towards foreigners, but now that the Independence Party has adopted this policy, racism has increased, as can be seen in the comment columns of the mainstream media as well as social media.
Recently, Samfylking (the largest opposition party) also started to speak against foreigners, a party that until now has followed the European Union on issues and attitudes that appear there.
The other government parties are the Left Greens, with roots in the communist party, but they show a neutral policy, except perhaps especially in animal protection and environmental issues. The progressive party, which is a popular realist party with roots in agriculture, is not particularly expressive.
The Independence Party has its roots in the business and financial sectors and has followed a right-wing policy as it happens every time in the neighboring countries, especially the United Kingdom and the United States.
In the opposition, the Pirates are the second most powerful party despite their young age. They are primarily a humanitarian party that also fights against corruption that has long occurred in Icelandic society, such as that which led to the economic and banking collapse of 2008.
It is clear that the rights of foreigners will be narrowed in the coming years with changes in laws and regulations that limit presence and residence and employment opportunities in the country.
A new president will be elected this summer. The president is an apolitically elected and largely unproblematic office, but it is somewhat personal and open to what extent a president chooses to use influence and authority or issues.
The outgoing president chose ineffectiveness and apathy in his office, which allows the ruling parties to adjust their sails according to the wind.