Denmark will limit the number of ‘non-Western’ Muslim ghettos in neighborhoods to 30% to ‘reduce the risk of religious and cultural parallel societies’

Denmark has for years had one of Europe’s most restrictive immigration policies, which Social Democratic Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has continued since coming to power in June 2019 amid growing opposition from the right.

Daily Mail According to Interior Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek, too many non-Western foreigners in one area ‘increases the risk of an emergence of religious and cultural parallel societies,’ he said in a statement.

He said however that the term ‘ghetto’, used to designate disadvantaged neighbourhoods, would be removed from the new legislation. ‘ Until now, the term was used legally to designate any neighbourhood of more than 1,000 people where more than half were of ‘non-Western’ (Muslim) origin, and which met at least two of four criteria.

The four criteria are: more than 40 percent of residents are unemployed; more than 60 percent of 39-50 year-olds do not have an upper secondary education; crime rates three times higher than the national average; residents have a gross income 55 percent lower than the regional average. Most Danes believe that Muslim refugees are a drain on their welfare state.

Too many of its Muslim residents are hard-up, or jobless, or poorly educated, or have criminal records. To comply with its policy of breaking up what the government until recently called “ghettos”, Mjolnerparken’s owner is to sell two of the four apartment blocks to investors. Other non-Muslim citizens will move in.

Fifteen Danish neighbourhoods currently fall into this category, and 25 others are considered ‘at risk’. The list is updated each December. In these neighbourhoods, misdemeanours carry double the legal penalties in place elsewhere, and daycare is mandatory for all children over the age of one or family allowances are withdrawn.

The existing legislation also calls for council homes in these areas to be reduced to 40 percent of available housing by 2030. The bill will be discussed by Danish political parties and is expected to pass, though no date has been set for the vote.

GIS Report A fundamental milestone was marked with the 2017 “ghetto law.” Aimed at eradicating lawlessness in neighborhoods dominated by the Muslim population, the legislation called on public housing corporations to sell off some apartments to wealthier newcomers and envisioned that some unredeemable parts would be demolished.

Children living in the “ghettos” would be required to attend at least 25 hours of classes per week to learn Danish values. (Very small children, from age one, in troubled neighborhoods would be forced away from their parents and placed in mandatory day care centers to be inculcated with Danish values. The idea is to eradicate ghettos both physically and mentally.) Asylum seekers insisting on remaining in such “ghettos” would have their benefits reduced. Crimes committed there would earn double penalties and special “visitation zones,” where police can stop and search at will, were established.

In February 2019, a new immigration law stated that refugees must be deported back to their home countries as soon as it is legal to do so.

According to Statistics Denmark, 11 percent of Denmark’s 5.8 million inhabitants are of foreign origin, of whom 58 percent are from a country considered ‘non-Western’. 

In March 2021, Denmark became the first European nation to tell Syrian Muslim migrants they must return to their home country, saying it is now safe for them there.

The Scandinavian nation stripped 94 Syrian refugees of their residency permits after it determined Damascus and the surrounding area as being safe. Migrants will be sent to deportation camps.. But rights groups say the government is trying to give migrants no other option than to return to Syria on their own accord.

Mattias Tesfaye, Denmark’s immigration minister, said last month that the country had been ‘open and honest from the start’ with refugees coming from Syria. ‘We have made it clear to the Syrian refugees that their residence permit is temporary. It can be withdrawn if protection is no longer needed,’ he said, according to The Daily Telegraph. 

His comments came as Denmark extended the parts on Syria considered safe for people to return, to include the southern Rif Dimashq Governorate.  ‘We must give people protection for as long as it is needed. But when conditions in the home country improve, a former refugee should return home and re-establish a life there,’ he said. 

Denmark’s ruling centre-Left Social Democratic Party has taken a fierce anti-immigration stance in an effort to fend off challenges from parties on the Right. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has promised to target ‘zero’ asylum seekers applying for residence in the country.

Al-Jazeera Various UN bodies have criticised the Danish government’s designation of “non-Western”.

In a statement last year, the UN Human Rights Office said: “Statistics Denmark, under the Danish Ministry for Economic and Interior Affairs, defines ‘non-Western’ as any country outside the EU, with the exceptions of Andorra, Australia, Canada, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, San Marino, Switzerland, the USA, and the Vatican State.

“The effect is that ‘non-Western’ disproportionately means Denmark’s non-white, non-European ethnic populations.” Amani Hassani, sociologist and research coordinator at the Center for Danish Muslim Relations (CEDAR), told Al Jazeera: “It’s trying to make these places more white. (And what’s wrong with that?)