Danish government denies claims in Council of Europe report

It surprises Terry Davis, the general secretary of the European Council, that prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen will throw the ECRI report on racism in Denmark in the waste paper bin. Rasmussen said in his news conference on Tuesday that the report contains a lot of errors. That is for Denmark to prove, Davis says.

This, however, will be quite difficult for the Danish government. Because proof of the xenophobic climate in Denmark is quite easy to find.

In the 2001 election campaign for the Danish parliament that brought Mr. Rasmussen to power, Rasmussen and his fellow liberalists from Venstre, the liberalist party expressed their objective attitude to immigrants in big campaign ads telling the Danish voters what the main problems in Denmark were at that time.The ad shown above was printed and distributed in a million copies to schools, factories, offices, shops - everywhere Danes congregate.

The ad shows Palestinian immigrants leaving court after being sentenced several years of prison for "mass rape". The court sentence is probably fair enough. What is "unfair" is the way the story was dealt with in the media, the general public, and by Venstre's spin doctors.
The Palestinians are aggressive and wave people away, which is perhaps understandable after all the fuss. They give the fuck up finger (not to be seen on this ad), most voters know the scene. All Danish TV viewers have repeatedly seen the young palestinians give the fuck up finger, when they leave court. It is a very familiar scene, and to many Danes it shows how ungrateful these people are. They come and enjoy the most advanced welfare in the world, - and just watch their reaction: They rape Danish girls, and they give the fuck up finger to everybody concerned enough to look their way!! - The cheek of these people!

But luckily we're are up for change (Tid til forandring, "Time for Change", Venstre's campaign slogan). The ad shows a few Palestinians as representing all. In that way it builds up stereotypes and prepares the ground for racial tension.

Louise Frevert, a member of Parliament from the right wing Danish People's party (DPP), which supplies the necessary mandates for the Danish government's parliamentary majority, has called muslims a "cancerous growth". She was not expelled from the party. Nor did Mr. Rasmussen stop cooperating with the party.

Mogens Camre, a member of the European Parliament for the DPP, has talked of the risk of islam taking over the entire country through Jihad. At the congress of the Danish People's party in 2004 he spoke about Turkish application for membership of the EU:

The Turkish government are a bunch of fundamentalists, who have dressed up in democratic attire..... The Turks do not intend to become Westerners. The Turks want to islamise Europe. And the Turkish government wants to cheat its way in. .... The muslims give birth to much too many children, and they do not have enough opportunities to feed them in their own backward countries, which produce next to nothing. Therefore they have decided to conquer Europe. (Mogens Camre's homepage).

And about islam he said:

The two big dictatorship ideologies, we have seen the last 100 years, lived in 12, respectively 70 years. Islam has survived for nearly 1400 years, and we're naïve, if we think we can change this ideology within a few decades. But we must do whatever we can do to stop the diffusion of the islamists' ideology, because it threatens the whole world. ....... Let me say it clearly, muslims must live in muslim country - and that is not here.

Here is a sample of Louise Frevert's writing. It is from a debate with the social liberal politician Margrete Vestager:

I can very well understand that you’re tempted to get more votes by supporting the muslims in Denmark, but the bill will have to be paid some day, and it can be expensive for the country. I do not think of the 6 bn. $ tax payers’ money, which it costs to have these people living in this country – per year – it is far more dangerous that the social liberals contribute to securing that these foreigners – not integratable citizens – will establish a power apparatus in our country, which our legislation, and hence our authorities, are not at all geared to handle. The Muslim Brotherhood has largely a free playing field in Naïve Goofy’s homeland, and of course they exploit this in an optimal way…... none of the parliamentary parties used the elections campaign to discuss the march forward of muslims…These could be the words of a nutty individual, but the point here is that they represent a substantial part of the public debate in Denmark. These politicians are Mr. Rasmussen's coalition partners.The muslims are not seen as contributors to Danish society
("6 bn. $". She forgets that a lot of them have jobs and pay taxes) .

Fogh Rasmussen's political lieutenant Jens "12 muslim men" Rohde has defended the PM's waste paper bin argument by saying that "the report is completely untrustworthy and unscientific. It has deliberately left out important information on the positive effects of government policy on immigrants".

The problem for the government is that the chickens have come home to roost. The bad climate it helped to create from the 2001 election and onwards is now retaliating on the government. It won't admit it by trying to solve the problems that are actually there. Instead it tries through Machiavellian mismanagement of power to deny all allegations. This is a very short-sighted policy.