Author: News
Publication: The Copenhagen Post
Date: January 14, 2003
URL: http://cphpost.periskop.dk/default.asp?id=27009
Vejle Municipal Court hands down
not-guilty verdicts against two Danish People's Party members charged under
the national racism paragraph.
Two politicians from the controversial
right-wing Danish People's Party were acquitted in Vejle Municipal Court
yesterday on charges of violating the nation's racism paragraph with a
series of inflammatory public statements on Muslims and immigrants.
Kenneth Kristiansen, chairman of
the Danish People's Party Youth Organisation (DFU), and Ringkøbing
County party leader Michael Rex were found not-guilty by the Vejle court.
The two had been charged under paragraph 266b of the Danish criminal code,
the so-called racism paragraph, after issuing strong statements during
the September 2001 Danish People's Party congress on second-generation
immigrants and Muslims. During that congress, Rex gave a speech in which
he declared: "Islam is not a religion in the traditional sense of the word.
It's a terrorist organization, that attempts to achieve world domination
through violence."
A beaming Kenneth Kristiansen left
the Vejle courtroom yesterday, convinced that he had been absolved from
a political crusade. Party leader Pia Kjærsgaard had, on numerous
occasions, expressed her solidarity with the two party members, and has
called for a repeal of the nation's racism paragraph.
High-ranking party member Mogens
Camre was also charged in the case, but was granted immunity from prosecution
due to his credentials as a member of the European Parliament. Camre was
charged for declaring at the 2001 party congress: "All the nations of the
West have been infiltrated by Muslims- some of them sound nice enough to
us, but they're just waiting until their numbers are great enough to destroy
us."
Police in Vejle are still seeking
a suspension of Camre's diplomatic immunity.
