Mad Mel’s ‘truth-teller’ who said Muslims are rapists is acquitted on racism charge

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Bob Pitt

Lars Hedegaard with Geert Wilders “Girls in Muslim families are raped by their uncles, their cousins, or their fathers.”

While one can certainly question the validity of such a statement, or the wisdom of making it, a Frederiksberg court ruled it does not constitute racism or hate speech, at least not in the case of Lars Hedegaard [pictured, with Geert Wilders].

The court on Monday acquitted Hedegaard, president of the Danish Free Press Society, of charges of racism stemming from statements the historian and journalist made to a blogger in December 2009.

Although the court stated that it found Hedegaard’s comments to be insulting, the acquittal was handed down due to the fact that Hedegaard did not know that his controversial comments would be published.

Hedegaard released a statement following his acquittal. “My detractors – the foes of free speech and the enablers of an Islamic ascendancy in the West – will claim that I was acquitted on a technicality,” the statement read. “That is absolutely true. However, the public prosecutor has been privy to the circumstances surrounding my case for a year – and yet he chose to prosecute me. Obviously in the hope that he could secure a conviction given the Islamophile sentiment among our ruling classes. My acquittal is therefore a major victory for free speech.”

Hedegaard’s Free Press Society believes that free speech is “being threatened, primarily by religious and ideological interests and international pressure groups” and that Islam is the “most dangerous threat at the moment” against free expression.

During the trial, Hedegaard received support both domestically – most famously from the Danish People’s Party’s Jesper Langballe, whose statements in support of Hedegaard earned the MP a 5,000 kroner fine for what another court said constituted racism – and from what Hedegaard called “freedom fighters around the world”.

According to Hedegaard’s statement, his acquittal “will encourage people all over the West and beyond to speak up”.

Copenhagen Post, 1 February 2011

Melanie Phillips will be pleased to hear the news. She denounced the prosecutions of Hedegaard and Langballe as “the Danish witch-hunt against the truth-tellers”.

Flying while Muslim – passenger thrown off plane in Denmark for reading about Islam

Posted on January 30, 2011 by Bob Pitt

Islam in Europe reports that the Scandinavian airline SAS removed Joakim Johansson, a Swedish convert to Islam, from a plane at Copenhagen’s Kastrup airport because he was reading manuscripts about Islam. After being interrogated by police and held in a cell for several hours, Johansson was eventually allowed to board another plane and continue his flight to London. Johansson commented: “I feel terrible that they generalise like this. They seem to think that a religious Muslim is automatically a terrorist.”

Danish People’s Party spokesperson convicted on racism charge

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Bob Pitt

Jesper Langballe, church spokesperson for the Danish People’s Party (DF), was on Friday convicted of making defamatory statements about Muslims. Langballe pleaded guilty to the charge of defamation under the anti-racism section of the penal code.

In January, Langballe wrote a letter to Berlingske Tidende newspaper in which he commented on claims made by the chairman of the Free Press Society, Lars Hedegaard, that Muslim fathers rape their daughters.

In his letter, Langballe supported Hedegaard’s views, saying that Hedegaard should not have written that “Muslim fathers rape their daughters, when the truth seems to be that they only kill them (the so-called honour killings) – and turn a blind eye when uncles rape them.”

Continue reading →

Germans less tolerant of Islam than neighbours, study finds

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Bob Pitt

Germans are more critical of Islam and less tolerant of building mosques than their neighbours in France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Portugal, a new survey has found.

Despite the other European countries’ often fractious relationships with their Muslim communities, people there were relatively positive about Islam and its followers compared to Germany, according to the survey commissioned by a research group based at the University of Münster.

According to weekly Die Zeit, which reported on an advance version of the study on Thursday, four out of 10 Germans in the former west of the country and 50 percent in the former east feel threatened by foreign cultures.

“Compared with the French, Dutch and Danish, a rigid and intolerant grasp of foreign religions predominates in Germany,” said the head of the project, sociologist Detlef Pollack. “The statement that Islam is part of Germany is completely disregarded in the opinions of Germans.”

The polling firm TNS Emnid, on behalf of the Münster researchers, surveyed 1,000 people each in the former west and former east Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Portugal. The study will be officially released later on Thursday in Berlin.

Fewer than 5 percent of Germans, compared with more than 20 percent of Danes, French and Dutch consider Islam to be a tolerant religion, according to the study.

Each of the other countries has had high-profile conflict with their Muslim communities – such as the Prophet Mohammed cartoons in Denmark, head scarf controversies in France and the murder of anti-Islam filmmaker Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands, as well as the rise of far-right politician Geert Wilders.

Nevertheless, a clear majority of people in those countries have a positive view of Muslims. By contrast, just 34 percent of western Germans and 26 percent of eastern Germans are positive about Muslims.

Most Germans saw barely any positive side to Islam, Pollack said. Less than 30 percent in the former west supported the building of mosques, while in the former east the figure was less than 20 percent. The acceptance of minarets or the adoption of Muslim holidays received even less support.

In Denmark, by comparison, more than half of respondents supported the building of mosques, while in France and the Netherlands the figure was about two-thirds and in Portugal it was nearly three quarters.

The Local, 2 December 2010

Pia Kjærsgaard calls for ban on Arab TV channels

Posted on October 31, 2010 by Bob Pitt

Pia Kjærsgaard DF The leader of Denmark’s populist Danish People’s Party, on which the government relies for support, said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday that pan-Arab television channels Al-Jazeera and Al Arabiya should be stopped from broadcasting to the country.

Pia Kjaersgaard, leader of parliament’s third-biggest party, accused the channels of sowing hatred against Western society in immigrant communities. The centre-right governing coalition said it did not support her views about the stations.

Kjaersgaard said she would look into reporting the TV stations to Danish regulatory authorities with the aim of getting their broadcasts blocked.

“My aim is merely to promote integration here which in certain residential areas has gone completely wrong, and that is to a large extent due to the inhabitants getting their news from these two TV stations only,” she said in an interview with the daily Berlingske Tidende. Their broadcasts are very full of hatred… They contribute to inculcating hatred against Western society.”

Reuters, 31 October 2010

Update: See “Proposal to ban Arabic stations meets resistance”, Copenhagen Post, 2 November 2010

Psychologist with anti-Muslim views informed expert testimony in Guantanamo trial

Posted on October 27, 2010 by Bob Pitt

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — A Danish psychologist who believes Muslims are raised to be aggressive and that inbreeding has damaged their genes informed a damning expert opinion of the risk Omar Khadr poses to public safety, court heard Wednesday.

Under cross-examination by defence lawyers, Dr. Michael Welner said he talked to Nicolai Sennels before coming to the conclusion that the Canadian-born Khadr was “highly dangerous” – an opinion he gave Tuesday on the first day of Khadr’s sentencing hearing.

Sennels, who is based in Copenhagen, has written extensively on Muslims, including one article introduced into evidence Tuesday. “If a Muslim does not react aggressively when criticized he is seen as weak, not worth trusting and he thus loses social status immediately,” Sennels wrote.

In another article, Sennels, 34, attributed a host of problems within the Islamic world to intermarriage among first cousins. “Massive inbreeding within the Muslim culture during the last 1,400 years may have done catastrophic damage to their gene pool.”

The seven military officers on the jury will decide on a sentence for Khadr, who pleaded guilty on Monday to five war-crimes charges.

Canadian Press, 27 October 2010

Abba to sue Danish People’s Party

Posted on September 23, 2010 by Bob Pitt

Mamma_Pia Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, the Abba stars behind the hit musical Mamma Mia have instructed their lawyers to contact the Danish People’s Party after the far-right party used and changed one of their songs to honour its leader.

Andersson, who last year donated a million kronor ($145,694) to aid the EU election campaign of Sweden’s Feminist Initiative, has reacted angrily to the Danish anti-immigrant party taking liberties with his copyrighted material, reported news agency TT Spectra. “They can bugger off,” Andersson told the agency.

Björn and Benny’s hit song Mamma Mia is the source of their anger after it given a revamp by the Danish People’s Party youth league in honour of the party leader, Pia Kjærsgaard. The young nationalists amended the text to “Mamma Pia” and gave the leader a rousing rendition at the party congress, but declined to seek the permission of the Swedes first.

“Firstly, you can not just re-write songs as you like and secondly we want them to understand that we have absolutely no interest in supporting their party,” said Benny Andersson.

The Local, 23 September 2010

Danish People’s Party leader joins Sweden Democrats’ campaign

Posted on September 11, 2010 by Bob Pitt

Pia Kjærsgaard DF Pia Kjærsgaard, the leader for the Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti – DF) has accepted an invitation from the far-right Sweden Democrats to take part in an election rally in Högänäs in southern Sweden on Saturday.

Kjærsgaard whose national conservative party has supported the Danish governing coalition of Liberal and Conservative parties since 2001, plans to visit Sweden to “experience the conditions of a Sweden election and to talk about democracy and freedom of speech”, according to a party statement.

Kjærsgaard made headlines in some Danish and Swedish media when she criticised the Swedish press for “acting as if they were in a banana republic” following the refusal of broadcaster TV4 to send an election campaign film by the Sweden Democrats.

The controversial Danish politician does not make a habit of taking part in election campaigns in foreign countries and has previously resisted several pleas from the Sweden Democrats for help. “Mona Sahlin has demonised the Danish People’s Party,” said DF’s press spokesperson Søren Søndergaard to news agency TT, by way of explanation for Kjærsgaard’s change of stance.

Social Democrat leader Mona Sahlin is on record as saying Sweden risks going down Denmark’s path if SD get into Sweden’s parliament, the Riksdag, when the votes are counted on September 19th.

While DF do not hold any cabinet posts the party enjoys a close cooperation with the government parties on most issues, and has pushed through a restrictive policy line towards immigrants and potential refugees. The party claimed 13.9 percent of the votes in the 2007 parliamentary elections after a dramatic rise in support following the Muhammad cartoons controversy in 2006.

The Local, 10 September 2010

See also “UN says party made racist remarks”, Copenhagen Post, 9 September 2010

Rise of European far right fuels ‘new racism’ of religious victimisation

Posted on July 5, 2010 by Bob Pitt

A rise in right-wing radicalism is fuelling the spread of xenophobia and extremist attitudes towards religious minorities in Europe, says Minority Rights Group International.

MRG’s flagship annual State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples report, themed for 2010 on religious minorities, was launched in Budapest, Hungary. It suggests that victimisation against religious groups is in many respects the “new racism”.

The report says that ultra right-wing parties, aiming to establish themselves in mainstream political arenas in Europe, justify their anti-immigration, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic rhetoric by stoking fears that religious minorities and immigrants are a threat to modern societies.

“Successes in the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, and at the national parliamentary level, have allowed these populist right-wing parties to shift formerly far-right ideas, on immigration for example, into the mainstream,” says Carl Soderbergh, MRG’s Director of Policy and Communications.

The report details a sharp rise in Islamophobia in Europe in 2009.

In May 2009, ultra right-wing groups held an “anti-Islam” rally to oppose the building of a large new mosque in Cologne, Germany. When the authorities in Denmark’s capital city Copenhagen approved the country’s first purpose-built mosque, the extreme-right Danish People’s Party launched an anti-mosque campaign in September.

Following a campaign by the ultra-conservative Swiss People’s Party, a sizeable majority of Switzerland’s cantons backed a referendum in November 2009, which proposed a ban on the building of new minarets in mosques.

“MRG is deeply concerned about the infringement of religious freedom that the Swiss ban on minarets, and other European Islamophobic initiatives, supposes for the Muslim community. We urge European authorities to abide by their obligations under international law and protect their populations’ freedom to practice their religion and be free from discrimination,” added Soderbergh.

Ekklesia, 5 July 2010

Far-right Danish MP faces charges over anti-Muslim comments

Posted on June 16, 2010 by Bob Pitt

Jesper Langballe The Danish parliament voted on Wednesday to remove a far-right politician’s immunity from prosecution so he can face charges over anti-Muslim comments, parliamentary sources said.

Jesper Langballe, a veteran member of the Danish People’s Party (PPD), a crucial ally of the centre-right government, wrote in a newspaper column published in January that “Muslims kill their daughters (over crimes of honour) and turn a blind eye while they are raped by their uncles”.