UN to Decide Legality of Muslim-Nazi Comparison

(Posted 2/18/09 www.RemnantNewspaepr.com)  The UN will decide if several prominent members of the Danish People's Party, including party chairman Pia Kjærsgaard, “crossed the line when they compared Muslims with Nazis and headscarves with swastikas,” reports the Danish daily newspaper, Berlingske (Dec. 28, 2008):

In the upcoming year the UN's Human Rights Committee in Geneva will receive a complaint from the Documentation and Counseling Center on Race Discrimination (DRC). The complaint says that the state prosecutor refused to deal with a complaint from the Center about Pia Kjærsgaard, EU parliament member Mogens Camre and the two Danish parliament members Søren Krarup and Morten Messerschmidt. [English translation by the Islam in Europe blog - http://islamineurope.blogspot.com]

The Documentation and Counseling Center on Race Discrimination (DRC), founded in 1993, is a non-governmental independent organization which claims to “operate in accordance with the general principles of human rights and provide advice as well as legal support to victims of, or witnesses to, racial discrimination.”

 The Islam in Europe blog reports (Jan. 4, 2009) that the Danish People's Party (DPP) has responded by lodging a counter-complaint against one of the imams involved in the original complaint. Morten Messerschmidt, the Danish People's Party EU spokesperson, has accused Imam Abdul Wahid Petersen of justifying the practice of stoning as part of Islamic law:

In the complaint to the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay, Morten Messerschmidt says that even if Abdul Wahid Petersen opposed stoning as a form of punishment in 2002, he explained then that it doesn't change the fact that "seen in the Islamic light it's been ordained by the Creator himself," and man is therefore not "authorized" to change it on their own. "If you agree with the assessment that stoning violates human rights, I would like to have your opinion on this public statement and their effect on the public debate and effect on integration of Muslim minorities in Danish society," writes Morten Messerschmidt to Navanethem Pillay.

Comment: What is the context of the “discriminating” remarks made by the Danish politicians in question? Twenty-five-year-old Asmaa Abdol-Hamid emigrated to Denmark from Palestine with her family when she was 6, and was trained in social work. In 2005, she ran (and lost) in the local council election for the city of Odense as a member of “Unity List,” a socialist/communist coalition, and in 2006 she became the first hijab-wearing presenter to host a Danish TV show, at which time she remarked, “headscarf-wearing women are part of Danish society and we need to accept this fact.”

In an April 27, 2008 press conference, Abdol-Hamid made public her intention to run for the position of parliamentary candidate in 2009. A week before the press conference, three members of the Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People's Party— DPP) made the statements reported to the UN by the Documentation and Counseling Center on Race Discrimination (DRC).

Søren Krarup, a member of parliament, said that, “It may sound offensive, but Islam is a totalitarian regime that has thousands of human lifes [sic] on its conscience. The headscarf is a symbol of this regime and the Quran may very well be compared with Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'.” He later added, "The Danish People's Party would like to underline that this is not a critique of the individual woman, who may wear a headscarf, but a general critique of Islam's veiling of women." Krarup’s views were reiterated by Mogens Camre, a DPP representative in the European Parliament, and by fellow DPP member, Morten Messerschmidt.

Is the relevant point here the appropriateness of the headscarf for parliament, or Abdol-Hamid’s suitability for the position? Look more closely at Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, who desires to be the first Muslim woman to enter the Folketing, the Danish parliament in Copenhagen. An April 28, 2008 Associated Press (AP) report offers some insights:

- In 2004, she wrote letters to newspapers complaining about Denmark's "24-year" rule which was designed to dissuade arranged marriages by preventing migrants from bringing in spouses under the age of 24. (According to INDSAM, Denmark’s largest immigrant organization, the average age of young men and women who are forced to marry is 18.6 years.)

- In 2005, she supported radical cleric Abu Laban in his demands for the family of a disco bouncer to pay "blood money" to the family of a Muslim man shot by the bouncer. (The late Ahmad Abu Laban, religious advisor for the Islamic Society of Denmark, was one of the clerics who helped stir up unrest, during a tour of Muslim nations, over the Mohammed editorial cartoons by accusing Denmark of insulting Islam. He referred to Osama bin Laden as a “businessman and freedom fighter” and accused Jews of “spreading AIDS in Egypt.” According to Lorenzo Vidino of the National Review Online, Abu Laban worked as a translator and distributor for Al Murabitoun, a publication “which glorified the killing of Western tourists in Egypt and urged the annihilation of Jews in Palestine.”)

- In 2005, she attended an anti-George W. Bush demonstration. (Is this the proper venue for a member of parliament?)

- On October 29, 2005, a month after the Jyllands-Posten newspaper published the now-famous editorial cartoons of Mohammed, she acted as coordinator for 11 Muslim groups in a complaint made to the Danish police against the newspaper. (On November 11, 2005, Abdol-Hamid was condemned by Karsten Hønge of the Socialist People's Party, who claimed that she was trying to limit freedom of speech by supporting the banning of the Mohammed cartoons.)

- On October 31, 2005, she refused, allegedly for religious reasons, to shake hands with a politician from the Danish People's Party (DPP). (Hamid El Mousti, a Muslim who sits on Copenhagen's City Council, commented, “If you don't shake hands with men, you can't be a part of the Danish Parliament. I'm from Morocco and we shake hands with women. If you do not salute people, communication between you and others will be very bad.")

When a parliamentary candidate has made such questionable decisions, apparently based upon her religious identity, what are reasonable politicians to do? “Islamization” of the West is not a boogeyman. Great Britain now has 5 sharia courts operating, and their rulings on such matters as divorce, financial disputes and domestic violence are enforceable with the full power of the nation’s judicial system.

In a November 23, 2007 AP interview, DPP party chairwoman Pia Kjærsgaard (one of the politicians being scrutinized by the UN) stated, “The most important thing for the Danish People's Party is to maintain the Danish identity. I am convinced that the Islamists want to sneak Sharia (Islamic law) through the back door, that they want to combat Western society and they want Islam to become the main religion....The individual Muslim has never been a problem for Danish society. But their number has.” One need not be a political analyst to see why certain groups would like to see such voices silenced by law.

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