Denmark
(Updated December 2003)
The Jewish population (ca. 7000) in Denmark (total
population: 5.3 million) is well integrated socially and anti-Semitism
is hardly visible, though the activities of right-wing extremist groups
and the election campaign, which focused on immigration policy in 2001,
have reinforced xenophobic attitudes. With the al-Aqsa Intifada violent
anti-Israeli demonstrations and heated debates broke out from October
2000, “which included anti-Semitic manifestations”. These
initiatives come from extreme leftist groups and militant Islamist activists.
As in most of the other EU Member States, the climax of the public debate
lay prior to the monitored period in March-April 2002, while the monitored
period itself was calmer for the Jewish community in Denmark. It appears
that there have been very few (if any) physical attacks and few reported
incidents of direct verbal abuse.
1. Physical acts of violence
PET has no reports of anti-Semitic attacks in the
monitoring period, neither of a physical or verbal nature, nor of incidents
of graffiti, vandalism, etc. in the monitoring period. However in August
the Copenhagen synagogue was vandalized and anti-Semitic graffiti sprayed
on its walls. The Jewish Community in Denmark, which systematically
registers all anti-Semitic incidents in Denmark, reported the following
incidents: two Arabs harassed the President of the Jewish Community.
During the period in question the Jewish Community received at least
8 reports from members who had been spat upon or otherwise harassed
on the street by Moslems. A mother, who wished to remain anonymous,
reported that Palestinians who knew her son from school had beaten him
on the street. The boy required medical attention at the local hospital.
On 21 April 2002, a Danish Jewish shop owner in the “Nørrebro”
district of Copenhagen was attacked by a gang of Palestinian youths
near his shop. The gang beat him and stabbed him with a knife. On 13
June 2002, a member of the Jewish Community’s Board reported the
eighth incident of malicious damage to his automobile.
2. Verbal aggression/hate speech
Direct threats/abuse
Rabbi Yitzchok Lowenthal, director of Chabad Denmark, reports that between
15 May and 15 June 2002 he was shouted at 5-6 times by young men with
Arab background. Similarly, a few friends of the Rabbi were verbally
assaulted on the street. A student at the Jewish school (Carolineskolen)
was afraid to go home after being repeatedly threatened by young men
of Arab background at the bus stop. A Jewish man on a bus reported that
a gang of young people of presumable Arab descent yelled at him and
told him what they would do to “the Jews”. On 21 May 2002,
the mother of a student at Byens Skole in the Valby district of Copenhagen
went to the police because Muslim students from the neighbouring Vigerslev
Allé Skole had threatened her son. A teacher at the boy’s
school had to smuggle him out the back door on 17 May when a gang of
Arabs showed up to beat him.
Indirect threats
In April the Islamic political organisation, Hizb-ut-tahrir, distributed
flyers on the street containing material from their homepage, “And
kill them, wherever you find them, and expel them from where they expel
you”. The incident has been continuously debated in public (see
section 5).
On 21 May 2002, graffiti was seen and photographed on traffic signs
around Fælledparken: “No Juden”.
On 11 June 2002, graffiti was seen and photographed at Blågårdsplads:
“No Jews”. A Lutheran bishop delivered a sermon in Copenhagen
Cathedral comparing Sharon’s policies toward the Palestinians to
those of the biblical King Herod, who ordered the slaughter of all male
children in Bethlehem under the age of two – prior to the incident
at the Church of Nativity (2 April) – in the same Bethlehem under
siege by the Israelis today.
Insults
A person with connections to the Progressive Jewish Forum describes
how various insinuating comments have been passed at work. For example,
when entering her office, a colleague said, “you’ve occupied
there (her chair) very well, haven’t you – ha, ha”, and
“you have nothing against there being pig’s blood in the wine,
have you?” When she enquired whether the wine was Italian, the
colleague answered: “It is in any case not from Israel. If it was
I would definitely not drink it!”
Media
No examples of anti-Semitic newspaper articles in the daily press are
known. However in August the widely circulated newspaper Jytland Posten
carried a radical Islamist’s offer of a reward of $35,000 for the
murder of prominent Jews. The head of the Danish Jewish community subsequently
reported receiving threatening telephone calls. There has also been
a debate about the situation in Israel in the daily press, where some
critics of Israel’s policies feel as if they are being accused
of being anti-Semitic, whereas certain members of the Jewish community
feel that the newspaper reports are one-sided.
Internet
Hizb-ut-tahrir’s homepage contains anti-Semitic material, such
as “Jews are a slanderous people” and openly calls on Muslims
“kill all Jews (. . .) wherever you find them."
3. Research studies
Between 16 May and 4 June and between 9 and 29 September,
the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) based in New York commissioned two
surveys “European Attitudes towards Jews, Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli
Conflict” that were conducted in ten European countries, including
Denmark. Compared with most of the other EU member states, the agreement
expressed in Denmark to four anti-Semitic stereotypes was clearly below
the EU-average (see Table: Report on Belgium). Also with the statement
“Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country” the Danes
(45%) remained below the European average (51%)
4. Good practices for reducing prejudice, violence and aggression
See below.
5. Reactions by politicians and other opinion leaders
On the same day as Hizb-ut-tahrir began distributing
its flyers the Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, invited several
leading figures from the Jewish Community in Denmark to discuss the
incident. Immediately afterwards the Prime Minister publicly condemned
the flyers and everything they stood for. The author of the flyer has
been reported to the police in connection with §266 b, the so-called
racism paragraph, and the Public Prosecutor is presently investigating
whether Hizb-ut-tahrir should be prohibited in accordance with §78
of the Danish constitution, an act which prohibits violent organisations
or organisations which incite violence. A majority in the Danish Parliament
supports both of these actions.
Several commentators have, however, stated that the quote has been
taken out of context and is in fact not an actual call for Muslims to
kill Jews in Denmark. Several leading figures with Muslim background
have publicly condemned Hizb-ut-tahrir, their methods and their viewpoints.
The Member of Parliament, Naser Khader, together with the Chairman of
the Integration Council in Copenhagen, Hanna Ziadeh and historian Mahmoud
Issa, who are all Danish-Palestinians, wrote a long open letter in the
daily broadsheet newspaper Politiken (24.5.02) appealing to all Danish-Palestinians
living in Denmark not to let their “justified criticism of the
Israeli government turn into hatred for all Jews”. They emphasized,
“our battle is political and not about religion and ethnicity”.
The article was printed in both Danish and Arab.
The daily newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad published (10
May 2002) an interview with Tariq Ramadan, whom the paper describes
as Europe’s best-known Islamic thinker, in which he explains that
“hate for the Jews is not Islamic”. In the article he says,
“nothing in Islam legitimizes the anti-Semitism that certain Muslim
organisations are expounding”.
Sources:
C.R.I.F. - Released by the European Jewish Congress |