Denmark strips passport of woman who volunteered for anti-ISIS Kurdish forces

COPENHAGEN — Police in Denmark have confiscated the passport of a 22-year-old woman named Joanna Palani and slapped a travel ban against her after she returned to Denmark from the Iraqi Kurdistan region and Kurdish areas in Syria, known as Rojava, where she fought alongside Kurdish forces against the Islamic State.

Palani—of Iranian Kurdish background—dropped out of college in Denmark last fall to join the YPJ, the women’s branch of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria. She fought in Kobani, the Syrian Kurdish city that was liberated from ISIS in January, and later claimed she fought with the Peshmerga of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq against ISIS.

“There is a reason to believe that [Palani’s] actions may be a danger to national security,” Danish police said, according to the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende. "By leaving for Iraq and by receiving training in military skills she could pose a danger to national security or a substantial threat to the public order.”

Palani’s lawyer, Thorkild Høyer, rejected claims his client “posed a threat to national security.”

"It is absurd that Palani is stripped of her passport when she has been fighting against the same enemy, ISIS, as Denmark is fighting against," Høyer told Rudaw. "It is hypocritical that she is punished when so many others who are going down there to fight with IS are not stripped of their passports."

Høyer said he would dispute the decision against Palani in Danish court. “We hope that she can get her passport back,” he said.

Denmark is part of the international effort to arm Iraqi Kurdish forces in the fight against Islamist extremists. It has sent a 55-person military team as well as emergency aid and weapons to help the Peshmerga. The Scandinavian country is also helping with US-led airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq.

Hundreds of Kurds from the West, among them about 10 Danish Kurds, are reported to have gone to fight alongside the KRG’s Peshmerga and the YPG in Syria in their battles against ISIS.

A new Danish law that came into effect last March gives police the right to seize passports and impose travel bans on Danish citizens suspected of planning to travel to Syria or Iraq to fight. According to the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET), around 125 Danes are fighting in Syria.

Among the political parties in Denmark, only one has expressed support for Palani. The left-wing Unity List’s legal spokesperson, MP Pernille Skipper, told Rudaw the law is problematic

“If the basis is to take the passport from a person who has battled ISIS, the law is clearly targeting the wrong persons,” Skipper told Rudaw. “It is a huge problem that Danish citizens can be punished for fighting against ISIS, which Danish and American forces are also fighting against.”

The Unity List now wants an explanation from the Danish government to clarify how the law will be used in practice, and who precisely will be targeted.

“In Unity List, we were very worried when they presented the law, because we feared it could target the wrong persons,” Skipper said. “And now we see that it happens. And it is also why we want to find out what you can and you cannot.”

Jorn Vestergaard, professor of criminal law at the University of Copenhagen, told Rudaw “the legal situation is very murky.”

“There is no general prohibition on participating in armed conflict abroad, as long as you do not participate in terrorism, commit war crimes or violate Danish interests,” he told Rudaw.

“But on the other hand, one must not assist terrorist organizations, and the YPG is linked to the PKK, which is on the terrorist lists,” he added referring to the YPG’s connection to Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is on the terrorism lists of the United States and European Union.

Though many countries have looked the other way on citizens and residents traveling abroad to fight ISIS, Palani is not the first European Kurd to be targeted for doing so.  

Shilan Ozcelik, a British woman of Kurdish descent, was arrested earlier this year at London’s Stansted Airport. Her supporters say she travelled to Brussels in an attempt to try to join the YPG or YPJ. She was arrested on January 16, 2015 as she returned from Brussels.