The now regular Saturday protests in front of the Icelandic parliament in Reykjavik went ahead today as planned, but a follow-up demonstration outside the police headquarters ended in violence.
During the busy parliament protests, the famous statue of Jonas Sigurdsson was dressed in women’s clothing to remind people of the role of the female half of the population and how they should take a leading role in rebuilding the Icelandic economy.
After the rally, some 200 to 300 people took part in a different protest at the main police station to demand the release of Haukur Himarsson, who had been arrested last night when police found out he was the person to fly the Bonus supermarket flag from the top of parliament two weeks ago.
After officers in full riot gear used pepper spray to try to disperse the crowds, police eventually released Hilmarsson and the crowd dissipated. It is still not known whether or not the police charged Hilmarsson before his release, however.
Hilmarsson was arrested last night after an educational research trip to the Althingi parliament house. He has a suspended 14 days remaining of an 18-day prison sentence he received in 2005 for protests with the Saving Iceland environmental pressure group.
(Photo: mbl.is/Júlíus)
Why so angry? You folks got your bailout from the IMF and other countries that helped you. Do you need more money? If so, go to IMF again. They have plenty.
That’s what I heard today:
“Geir seems to have been repressed, but dear Geir, even if you are ready to be repressed it does not mean that we are ready to be repressed. That is why we are here today”
Well done all…
<<<<<<>>>>>>
The Government has to fall!!!
From http://newsfrettir.com/
“The suggestion of Geir H. Haarde prime minister and Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir minister of foreign affairs show how far these ministers have moved away from their nation. This is what Ogmundur Jonasson, parliament chairman of the left wing party, said in a conversation with RÚV about the letters from the prime minister to the wage council.
But in the letter there is a request for a temporary pay cut for those who are under the council for the year 2009.
Ogmundur sayd that this suggestion will be like a wet rag in the face of the public and it is possible that the amount participants in the protest meetings will increase substantially.”
Wow, police hand suspect to mob. What has Iceland come to?
Don’t let the bankers buy you in to slavery. You need food and heat. You have plenty of fish.
Do you grow vegetables in greenhouses? How much heating is geothermal and how much is oil?
WORK and being self sufficient. Your children and grandchildren will thank you.
It seems that the Government is getting desperate…
This is what really happen:
“Haukur Hilmarsson, who was arrested last night because of protests at the house of the Parliament two weeks ago, was let go before 6pm but a group of people had stood outside the police station at Hverfisgata and protested and demanded that the man would let go. An unknown individual paid the fine for Haukur.
Everything has calmed down now at the police station where there were loud screams and argues for almost two hours and the crowd was almost 500 persons at the peak. The protests stopped when Haukur walked out with a cloth over his face and the crowd celebrated loudly.
Haukur said himself that he did not know who bailed him out, but he would have preferred to finish his time in jail.
Haukur flagged the Bonus flag on the roof of the house of the parliament two weeks ago. He was arrested last night after a science trip of students at the University of Iceland at the house of the Parliament. Haukur had then fourteen days left of his convection he got in 2005 because of protests for Saving Iceland who are fighting against energy generators.” http://newsfrettir.com/ sources. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7744355.stm
What will they do next? Arrest babies with their families…?
EVERYBODY TO THE STREETS THE 1ST DECEMBER.
@ Stan. Too right!
Where were all these people 6 months ago when they were arrogantly saying Iceland was the best country in the world?
By the way, was there enough space for them to park their BMW X5′s and Mercedes ML420??
Hypocritical Icelanders…
The IMF and the EU should have never lent any money at all to these spoiled cry-babies
@ Paul(uk) it sounds like you are the cry baby always on about your BMWs and MERKs. Why did father xmas tell you that you are not getting one this xmas. Just grow up and stop wingeing like a baby.
Yes, Iceland thats the way to do it. A revolution just like Obama. Hope you can believe in. Vote Obama for president of Iceland and he will solve all our problems. Lets revolt.
I wouldn’t have any American influence Theresa , maybe I’m missing something but it seems to me that the yanks are the cause of all this world wide grief(and recession) ,it was them that loaned money to all and sundry , the collpase of there financial system the took the rest of the world with them , best thing the rest of the world can do is ignore them , there is no one more arrogant than the americans .The Icelandic people are humble in comparison.
I would not be surprise if the day before the 1st December, the police will arrest members of the feminist party, because of last Saturday protest, covering the statue with a pink dress.
Where the government is going? Are they creating fascism against peaceful demonstrations? Is that real democratic way of treating problems? Spraying innocent kids with pepper guns and not having treatment for it at the hospital?
Is clear that nobody wants those criminals and dumb in the power! Please, just step down before it degenerate, because the government speeches with empty words don’t full Icelanders any more.
They have been taking the PEOPLE for grounded long time ago. Guess what? A REVOLUTION is born!
People are protesting because they are ignorant and childish. People say the government hasn’t been dealing with the crisis. Although it may seem as the government is inactive it is simply because the IMF and EU have turned their backs at us and it’s very hard to do anything without a loan. Both parties will not grant Iceland a loan until the IceSave dispute has been resolved. Their terms are too extreme so the government has so far not accepted. People interpret that as lack of actions when the government has really been trying to sort out the IceSave nonsense. I’m sure people would have more serious things to protest if the government had accepted the initial terms – that would have given them a reason to protest.
EU support has grown in Iceland this year significantly. Somewhere round 70% of Icelanders want to join the EU. But I bet, if most of them were asked “why do you want to join?” most people would not be able to answer that question. To Icelandic pro-EU people, the EU is a magical solution which will make everything right. That doesn’t seem to apply to current EU members who most are going through serious crisis. A new poll published today by Fréttablaðið showed that the EU has lost almost 10% of its support. Is that because people are not happy with the EU and how it’s trying to blackmail the Icelandic government? I don’t know but I hope people will come to their senses and oppose to the EU before it’s too late.
I’ve read blogs by people who seem to blame all Icelanders for what’s going on and not just a few people who actually ran the banks. Didn’t this whole thing start in America or more precisely the USA? At least we’re working on it.
“Although it may seem as the government is inactive it is simply because the IMF and EU have turned their backs at us and it’s very hard to do anything without a loan.”
Aw, come on, didn’t you ever ask yourself WHY there have been all those problems? It was jst because of the Icelandic governments incompetence and stubborness. They didn’t understand that you’re in a very weak position to refuse reasonable terms anything if you’re broke and begging for credits.
“Their terms are too extreme so the government has so far not accepted.”
Looks like you don’t read the news. Check the stories of the last fourteen days here. You’re not up-to-date.
Ross–you say that “the yanks are the cause of all of this worldwide grief.” However, you conveniently deny any culpability on the part of say, Icelandic banks, for gorging themselves with abandon on cheap wholesale funds, and making monstrously large and irresponsible loans to “Viking raiders” of the British high street. Excess liquidity (resulting in easy money for Icelandic banks and plenty of others) “caused” the concomitant asset bubble, which in turn “caused” this crisis. There’s plenty of blame to go around for this excess liquidity, including U.S. Fed monetary policy, lack of appropriate reserve requirements at non-U.S. (i.e., European) banks, vast sovereign wealth funds in search of returns, etc., etc.
Some Icelanders are still in Neverland with Elfs and drolves!!!
I never denied that the icelandic banks were not to blame for a lot of the problems , for years they have been punching well above their weight , if you keeping on punching a giant it may well eventually fall (in this case on top of the banks and crushing them).The biggest problem is the people (Islanders) blaming the British gov for their collapse , the problem started a long way further west than the UK . The British gov was only trying to protect the honest people who invested their savings/pensions etc from total loss in the Icelandic banks .
@Stan
You don’t understand these loans are extreme and it means we Icelandars and our children will be paying for this for the next centuries to come and the reason why they are so high is because the UK forced the government (by controlling the IMF behind the curtains) to pay the debts of the private banks. How would you feel like if you where forced to pay for debts of some private companies.
@Paul (UK)
Not everyone here in Iceland has BMW or Mercedes, you are just ignorant. The common people like me just drive a normal car. How would you feel if your currency would become worthless your house loans would double/triple and at the same time the house value would drop by half and your salary becomes less and less because of inflation. This is what is happening here in Iceland now.
Iceman, I fully understand your anger and frustration. I would be frustrated, too.
However, to be fair, it were not only the British that have laid the IMF loan on ice but also the Netherlands. In fact, the whole EU made co-operation and acceptance of the undeniable legal situation by the Icelandic authorities a precondition for any loan – including your nordic allies!
And it was not only the UK government that froze assets of the Icelandic banks in their country. The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bafin) did just the same even though Kaupthing Germany was working under legal supervision of the Icelandic authorities.
However, to be fair, it were not only the British that have laid the IMF loan on ice but also the Netherlands. In fact, the whole EU made co-operation and acceptance of the undeniable legal situation by the Icelandic authorities a precondition for any loan – including your nordic allies!
…..because of the act that was used by BRITISH goverment. it all comes back to that and it was BRITISH gov, that did that and caused a whole load more problems on top of everything else.
and dont say it isnt a terrorist act. it says so (below) and this is what icelanders see and feel from the BRITISH.
Legislation
9. The Treasury makes this Order under the powers conferred by sections 4 and 14 of and Schedule 3 to
the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001.
AÞB, as I said, it seems that Britain was not the only country that decided to use such measures, and as Mike explained only yesterday the Icelandic authorities should have been aware of the immediate danger that the assets of Icelandic banks in foreign countries would be frozen should there be a dangerous situation for savers in these countries.
> Peter (Germany) – “…including your nordic allies!” Perhaps there also have been a pressure from some EU allies to some Nordic countries? You should know that Denmark, Sweeden an Finland is members to the EU, which means that the Nordics perhaps had to handle this at to levels?
Iceman & AÞB
Go over the forum and please read all the comments. This has discussed over and over again…
yes orchafine, i have been reading this site for a few years and i have read all the comments recently and occationaly i write down what i think after reading some.
after all im just a very ordinary person who doesnt know (and doesnt want to know) anything about politics just how people see things and why the brits are blamed more then other countrys.
“Perhaps there also have been a pressure from some EU allies to some Nordic countries? You should know that Denmark, Sweeden an Finland is members to the EU, which means that the Nordics perhaps had to handle this at to levels?”
Well, perhaps so. But do you have any proof for this? Because otherwise this surely cannot be a sound argument because then it’s no more than an allegation which cannot be supported by facts.
Besides, I don’t think it’s all that easy to exert that much pressure on all four big Nordic countries. Sweden, Finland and Denmark are part of the EU, but they are actually quite important, extremely respected and quite powerful members within the EU. They cannot be easily pressured into something which they themselves do not think right.
Iceman:
“You don’t understand these loans are extreme and it means we Icelandars and our children will be paying for this for the next centuries to come and the reason why they are so high is because the UK forced the government (by controlling the IMF behind the curtains) to pay the debts of the private banks. How would you feel like if you where forced to pay for debts of some private companies.”
As has already been explained here and elsewhere, the EU forced Iceland to fulfil its MINIMUM legal responsibilities to depositors in a bank that was guaranteed and regulated directly by the Icelandic government. Nothing more.
@Peter – London
“As has already been explained here and elsewhere, the EU forced Iceland to fulfil its MINIMUM legal responsibilities to depositors in a bank that was guaranteed and regulated directly by the Icelandic government. Nothing more.”
The bank was a private bank and not controlled by the government and there was a legal dispute about how to interpret this EU directive. We wanted to settle the issue in an independent European court, but the UK didn’t want this and bullied Iceland intead. Read this for more information:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/11/iceland-creditcrunch
Also there is a difference between the Icelandic accounts and the foreign accounts. The reason the government can guarantee the Icelandic accounts is because they are in ISK currency.
Just blame the USA for every little thing that happens on the entire earth. Nothing is your fault because you and everyone else on earth are perfect in every way. Before there was an America the world had no problems at all. You are wonderfull, we are crap, we get it.