The week at a glance...Europe

London

Reporter’s partner held: The British government is defending its nine-hour detention at Heathrow Airport this week of David Miranda, the Brazilian partner of the Guardian journalist who broke the NSA surveillance story. Miranda was traveling from Germany to Brazil at the Guardian’s expense to deliver classified data to journalist Glenn Greenwald, his partner, that originated with NSA contractor Edward Snowden. British officials questioned Miranda for the maximum time allowed under an anti-terror law and confiscated his laptop and data sticks. Greenwald called it a “failed attempt at intimidation,” and pledged to get revenge by revealing secrets about Britain. “I think they’ll regret what they’ve done,” he said. The Home Office said police had a duty to act if they believed a traveler possessed “highly sensitive stolen information that would help terrorism.”

London

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Spoons as distress signals: A British charity is telling girls whose parents want to send them abroad for a forced marriage to put a spoon in their underwear. Airport security officials who spot the spoon in the metal detector will take the girls aside for a search. “They will be taken to a safe space where they have that one last opportunity to disclose they’re being forced to marry,” said Natasha Rattu of the aid group Karma Nirvana. British authorities handle nearly 1,500 forced-marriage cases a year, most involving ethnic Pakistani girls, and some victims are now speaking out. Sameem Ali, a Manchester city official, was forced into a marriage in Pakistan when she was 13 and brought back to the U.K. pregnant the next year. “I had never seen the guy before,” she said.

Bremgarten, Switzerland

No pool ban: The Swiss Office for Migration is struggling to correct widespread reports that a Swiss town banned foreigners from its swimming pools. The erroneous story, picked up by media outlets across the world, held that the town of Bremgarten, outside Zurich, refused to allow immigrants to use public facilities. In fact, the government said this week, the town’s pool is located in a school, and the town simply informed an asylum camp that residents could use the facilities only when the school was not in session. “There’s no swimming ban for asylum seekers,” said Swiss Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga. “Switzerland is and must remain an open country.” Switzerland has nearly twice as many asylum seekers per capita as the EU average.