Danish Far-Right Withdraws Muslims Insult

A far-right Danish party has withdrawn its anti-Muslim comments after coming under fire from politicians and the Muslim community in the Nordic country.

“That expression is perhaps exaggerated,” Søren Espersen, deputy of the right-wing Danish People's Party (DPP), told The Copenhagen Post on Sunday, December 22.

“I thought that myself when I saw what he said.”

The troubles erupted last week when DPP announced its plans to vote against the bi-annual citizenship law that grants hundreds of Muslims the Danish citizenship.

The far- right party claimed that 'too many' Muslim immigrants were not welcomed in the Denmark.

The citizenship list included 422 Iraqi and Afghani Muslims, who were vehemently rejected by DPP although they have accomplished their citizenship's procedures.

Despite DPP's opposition, the Danish parliament has voted unanimously in favor of the bi-annual citizenship bill on Thursday.

According to the Danish law, the parliament has the right to grant the citizenship twice a year.

The DPP's anti-Muslims remarks are not the first.

Earlier in 2013, the DPP was sued after producing an anti-immigration advertisement which has branded 700 new citizens as suspected terrorists.

In 2007, the DPP, the third-largest political force in Denmark, has put forward a string of draft laws calling for a ban on hijab in public places and denying Muslims special worship areas in the workplace.

The party has also called for a ban on halal meat in daycare centers and on separate locker rooms for Muslim schoolgirls.

Opposition

Many parties have condemned DPP's stance, considering it a discriminatory act.

“I just want to make sure that Dansk Folkeparti's spokespeople understand that those of us in Venstre welcome all new citizens, regardless of what countries they came from or what the predominant religion is in those countries,” Venstre's Jan Jørgensen said during last Thursday’s parliamentary session.

“I just want to be 100 percent sure that Dansk Folkeparti has duly noted Venstre's opinion in this matter.”

Along with politicians’, the DPP comments were vvehmently condemned by Socialistisk Folkeparti’s Özlem Cekic as grotesque.

“Just imagine if they would have said that they wouldn't give Danish citizenship because people were Jewish [rather than Muslim],” Cekic said.

“I think it is grotesque, and that it is very upsetting that Dansk Folkeparti in that way would try to stir up the beast within.”

Moreover, Christian Langballe, the DPP member who proposed the citizenships objection, claimed that he didn't not say the word 'Muslims', but rather “non-Western, Muslim countries”.

“[Cekic is] playing the Nazi card, and that is absolutely not worth commenting on,” Langballe said.

“What I mean is that, in some of these ghetto areas, indigenous Danes have become the minority,” he told Politiken.

Across the Nordic region, anti-immigration parties, which languished after Norwegian far-rightist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in 2011, are gaining support.

Islam is Denmark's second largest religion after the Lutheran Protestant Church, which is actively followed by four-fifths of the country's population.

Denmark is home to a Muslim minority of 200,000, making three percent of the country's 5.4 million population.

Source: On Islam