Category Archives: Denmark

Danish paper sorry for Muhammad cartoons

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Denmark’s largest selling broadsheet newspaper last night issued an apology to the “honourable citizens of the Muslim world” after publishing a series of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked protests across the Middle East. In a lengthy statement the editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten admitted that the 12 cartoons, one of which depicted Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban, had caused “serious misunderstandings”. Carsten Juste said: “The 12 cartoons … were not intended to be offensive, nor were they at variance with Danish law, but they have indisputably offended many Muslims, for which we apologise.”

Guardian, 31 January 2006

Robert Spencer reports this under the headine “Danish newspaper caves to Muslim intimidation”.

Dhimmi Watch, 30 January 2006

And the fascists chime in with a report headed “Denmark on Islamic jihad list”. They suggest: “Perhaps this is just a taster of things to come, an opportunity for Muslims to test the backbone of western governments and opinion formers, a ‘recce’ mission to see just how far the Muslims have to push before the west gives way.”

BNP news release, 31 January 2006

Something rotten in the state of Denmark

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“… long before these drawings came into the public domain, there was widespread apprehension among Danish Muslims over the way they and their religious affiliation were presented in the media. The image projected in the Danish media of Islam has been one of a faith that did not undergo a reformation and renaissance similar to Christianity, and is thus stuck in the middle ages. The drawings are simply a culmination of several years of media persecution of the Muslim minority in Denmark. Even worse is the role elected politicians have played in stoking this fire. It is not unusual for certain politicians to make ill-willed and mistaken, but also common, reference that Muslims are immigrants, and immigrants are badly integrated and therefore the root of all evil in Danish society.”

Zubair Butt Hussain in the Daily Star, 10 January 2006

Islamophobia in Denmark

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A balanced and informed article from the NYT  by Dan Bilefsky on the controversy in Denmark arising from the decision by the newspaper Jyllands-Posten to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, including one in which he is shown wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. Bilefsky places the issue in the context of “an intensifying anti-immigrant climate that is stigmatizing minorities and radicalizing young Muslims” and the rise of the far-right Danish People’s Party.

New York Times, 8 January 2006

It is articles like this, of course, that lead to angry denunciations of the NYT by Jihad Watch et al.

Islam – ‘a terrorist movement’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A few days after the Danish People’s Party (DF) punished its Copenhagen mayoral candidate for publishing racist remarks on her website, removing her from the post as the party spokesman on educational affairs, her successor went ahead and described the Muslim religion as a terrorist movement.

Defeated mayoral candidate Louise Frevert’s website compared Muslims with tumours, causing a public outrage. Though she blamed the statement on her website editor, DF punished her by removing her from a number of spokesman posts in parliament, including the one on educational policies.

Her replacement, Martin Henriksen, however, has also been criticised for having a website that is equally anti-Muslim. “From its beginning, Islam has been a terrorist movement”, Henriksen stated on his website, warning against letting Muslims run for office in parliament and municipal councils.

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Attacking Islam hinders integration: Danish Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim activists blasted recent anti-Islam remarks by a Danish lawmaker, cautioning that recurrent attacks on their faith by politicians and some media hinder the minority’s integration into society.

“The Muslim minority has for sometime been suffering from anti-Islam and anti-Muslim statements which send shockwaves through the minority,” Qassim Saeed Ahmed, the media officer of the Copenhagen-based Scandinavian Wakf, told IslamOnline.net.

MP Martin Henriksen of the People’s Party has recently described Islam as a “terror network,” describing Muslims and their faith as enemies of Western civilization. “Such statements infuriate Muslims and stymie their integration into the Danish society,” Ahmed said.

He stressed that the Scandinavian Wakf, the main Muslim organization in Denmark, is coordinating with other groups the possibility of taking the lawmaker to court.

Henriksen’s attack on Danes who revert to Islam have also triggered rebuke. “I think such statements would eventually having their toll on Muslim reverts,” Ahmed. The Danish legislator described Danes who embrace Islam as morally inferior, accusing them of betraying their roots and culture by becoming Muslims.

“This is unacceptable and violates Danish laws,” Abdul Wahid Pedersen, a Danish-born imam, told IOL. “Such statements demonstrate utter ignorance of the true teachings of Islam,” he added. Pedersen, who embraced Islam 28 years ago, shrugged out any influence of such hostility on himself. “But new reverts might be affected.”

Both Ahmed and Pedersen agreed that the more the Danes understand Islam, the more they will respect the Muslim faith and its believers.

Islam Online, 4 December 2005

Nordic views on Islam sour after global attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In October, leading Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten stirred emotions when it defied Islam’s ban on images of Prophet Mohammad by printing cartoons depicting him in various guises, including one where his turban appears to be a bomb.

In Norway, the anti-immigration Progress Party won a record 22 percent of parliamentary seats in a September election.

A poll by Sweden’s Integration Board in September showed that while the country was more tolerant towards foreigners, it had grown less positive towards Muslims, with 40 percent saying they did not want a mosque in their neighbourhood.

“Islam has become the bottom of the pecking order, a type of new enemy,” Helena Benauda, head of the Swedish Muslim Council, said when the poll was published. “I fear it will get even worse after the terrorist attack in London this summer.”

Reuters, 23 November 2005

Anti-Prophet cartoons deliberate provocation: expert

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Danish caricatures which showed Prophet Muhammad as a stereotypical fundamentalist would fuel the sense of persecution among young Muslims in the country, a Danish expert warned on Thursday, November 10.

“The cartoons seem to have been a deliberate move by the newspaper to provoke Muslim sentiment in a totally legal manner,” Bjorn Moller, a senior research fellow at the Danish Institute of International Studies told The Christian Science Monitor.

Twelve drawings depicting Prophet Muhammad in different settings appeared in Denmark’s largest circulation daily Jyllands-Posten on September 30. In one of the drawings, he appeared with a turban shaped like a bomb strapped to his head.

Moller said the public expressions of racism are increasing, citing one right-wing member of parliament who compared Denmark’s Muslim community to cancer.

“Things which people wouldn’t have been allowed to say a couple of years ago are now being said openly,” Moller added. It’s becoming more socially acceptable to use that kind of language and that’s bound to alienate Muslims and create fanaticism.

“A growing number of people see being a Dane and being a Muslim as incompatible,” Moller added.

Moller said the right-wing Danish People’s Party, the country’s third largest, is behind controversial government attempts to stabilize Denmark’s growing Muslim community at no more than 10 percent of the total 5.5 million population.

“The emphasis is rapidly becoming to keep out as many people as possible, regardless of whether they’ve been tortured or persecuted,” he said.

Islam Online, 10 November 2005

Danish cartoon controversy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten is facing accusations that it deliberately provoked and insulted Muslims by publishing twelve cartoons featuring the prophet Mohammed.

The newspaper urged cartoonists to send in drawings of the prophet, after an author complained that nobody dared to illustrate his book on Mohammed. The author claimed that illustrators feared that extremist Muslims would find it sacrilegious to break the Islamic ban on depicting Mohammed. Twelve illustrators heeded the newspaper’s call, and sent in cartoons of the prophet, which were published in the newspaper one week ago.

Daily newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad said one Muslim, at least, had taken offence. “This type of democracy is worthless for Muslims,” Imam Raed Hlayhel wrote in a statement. “Muslims will never accept this kind of humiliation. The article has insulted every Muslim in the world. We demand an apology!”

Jyllands-Posten described the cartoons as a defence for “secular democracy and right to expression”. Hlayhel, however, said the newspaper had abused democracy with the single intention of humiliating Muslims.

Lars Refn, one of the cartoonists who participated in the newspaper’s call to arms, said he actually agreed with Hlayhel. Therefore, his cartoon did not feature the prophet Mohammed, but a normal Danish schoolboy Mohammed, who had written a Persian text on his schoolroom’s blackboard.

“On the blackboard it says in Persian with Arabic letters that ‘Jyllands-Posten‘s journalists are a bunch of reactionary provocateurs’,” Refn said. “Of course we shouldn’t let ourselves be censored by a few extremist Muslims, but Jyllands-Posten‘s only goal is to vent the fires as soon as they get the opportunity. There’s nothing constructive in that.”

Copenhagen Post, 6 October 2005

We must show our opposition to Islam, says Danish queen

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Queen MargretheQueen Margrethe II of Denmark has called on the country “to show our opposition to Islam”, regardless of the opprobium such a stance provokes abroad. Her comments further undermined the image of Denmark as a liberal haven for those seeking a new life in northern Europe.

The Danish government has already been accused of fuelling xenophobia by introducing measures which effectively closed the country to asylum seekers. But in overtly political passages from an official biography published yesterday Queen Margrethe makes comments certain to complicate her nation’s relationship with Muslims.

She said: “We are being challenged by Islam these years – globally as well as locally. It is a challenge we have to take seriously. We have let this issue float about for too long because we are tolerant and lazy.

“We have to show our opposition to Islam and we have to, at times, run the risk of having unflattering labels placed on us because there are some things for which we should display no tolerance. And when we are tolerant, we must know whether it is because of convenience or conviction.”

Daily Telegraph, 15 April 2005

See also “Danish queen says Islam poses global threat”, Islam Online, 15 April 2005

Update:  However, it was later argued that the Queen’s words had been misrepresented by the press and that her comments were directed at “radical Islam”.

See “Media distorted queen’s Islam remarks: Danish Muslim”, Islam Online, 18 April 2005