Defence Chief Tim Sloth Jørgensen has written a personal letter to Danish editors-in-chief asking them to stop journalists reporting on a book written by a former commando and has begun injunction proceedings against the book’s publishers.

The book, written by former commando Thomas Rathsack, describes operations carried out by his Army Special Operations Force commando unit abroad, and is claimed by the defence establishment to endanger Danish troops, foreign elite units and cooperating partners as it describes how Danish commandos work.

The injunction proceedings against the book include demands to find all copies of the book, an application for help from bailiffs to search all areas of the premises of the Peoples Press publishers and to force Peoples Press to divulge the names of journalists to whom review copies have been sent.

Editor
Politiken Editor-in-Chief Tøger Seidenfaden says he finds Sloth Jørgensen’s request curious.

“My initial reaction is that I don’t quite understand the logic of the request. The media has already reported quite extensively from the book and its central passages. So I fail to see what further damage, if any, could be done. It seems that the defence establishment has wanted to make an example and curb the freedom of speech of Danish soldiers,” says Seidenfaden.

"As things stand I see no reason that Politiken should stop referring to this book, if we find it newsworthy," Seidenfaden concludes.

In shock
Management at Peoples Press is shocked at the injunction proceedings.

“This is unpleasant and a major escalation. We feel that this book prepares the ground for a necessary discussion about the raw reality of war, and the defence establishment may not be interested in such a discussion,” says Peoples Press Creative Director Jakob Kvist.

“This is one of the most unfortunate cases of censorship I have ever seen. If it ends with ransacking premises there is an obvious context,” says Kvist.

Defence
Although having declined to comment on the injunction proceedings, the defence establishment has previously said that overall, the book is a security risk.

“We feel that overall, the information in this book goes beyond what we feel should be published. Were I to assess this as a document, without knowing it was a book, I would make it highly classified,” says Colonel Hans-Christian Mathiesen.

Thomas Rathsack, the former commando who wrote the book, has discovered that his security clearance has been removed. In the book, he is said to show that Danish commandos have been on operations abroad much more frequently than the general public realises, including missions since 2002 in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosova.