The riots in Copenhagen, Sunday, 14 April 2019, with burning barricades and clashes with police in combat gear, broke out after the police chose to move the state-sanctioned abuses against Islam and Muslims to Blågårds Plads, despite the obvious security risk associated with this. Due to this worrying irresponsibility, the authorities bear a significant part of the responsibility for the emergence of predictable trouble, albeit wrong.

The Danish state insists, week after week, on facilitating and protecting the public desecration and burning of the Qur’an, in the name of the lie of freedom. Last year and until the events on Sunday, it has cost Danish society DKK 24 million to provide state guarantees for these hateful attacks on Islam and Muslims, for which politicians have paved the way, legally and politically.

Like Breivik in Norway, the mass murderer in New Zealand, and the coward who attacks a random Muslim woman, the perpetrator is the miserable offspring of 18 years of anti-Islamic policies and media discourse. When media consistently describe the offender as a “critic of Islam,” they legitimize his actions and advocate a low culture that equates abuse with “criticism of religion” as long as it has to do with Islam. The Danish state has, since the politically encouraged drawings of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in 2005, excelled in being the caretaker of the most vulgar outbursts against Islam and Muslims, committed by the most indecent people, including current ministers of government.

The responsibility for the hatred towards Islam, the tensions and the polarization of society is therefore upon the country’s government, politicians and media. The Prime Minister’s hypocritical renouncement on twitter is completely worthless, as he, his government and their parliamentary basis, are the foremost exponents of precisely “derogatory actions directed at specific groups in DK”.

Once again, we must draw attention to the perpetual hypocrisy: where was the unconditional protection of the freedom of speech and security guarantees for the Tibet-demonstrators? Where was the freedom when parliament banned the niqab? … The double standards reach an absurd level, when the same politicians who pay tribute to the freedom of speech, every time Islam and Muslims are degraded, override the freedom and restrict it in order to gag the imams and tighten the grip on Muslims in this country.

It should not be surprising that the burning of the Qur’an is protected and safeguarded in this country, where the political mainstream is outright hostile to Islam and has created a climate of suspicion and hatred for Muslims in the last two decades. We, Hizb ut Tahrir / Scandinavia, reject the false Western freedom of expression. It is a political weapon which, on the one hand, is used for state-sanctioned psychological violence with constant abuse against Muslims, and on the other hand, it is bend and restricted to criminalize Islamic expressions. We furthermore condemn the hazardous political course that creates unnecessary tensions in society and encourages strife, division and further polarization.

We hold the Danish government and the authorities responsible for facilitating the abuses against Muslims and for the inflamed climate that characterizes society and the public debate. We urge Muslims to distance themselves from the Danish politicians, their anti-Islamic policies and the culture of liberty that they represent; and to hold them responsible for the hatred and insecurity they have created, as well as the deep trenches they have dug in society.

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Scandinavia

Monday, 09th Sha’ban 1440 AH

15/04/2019 CE

No.: 1440 / 08