 | |
| Formation | 2015 |
|---|---|
| Type | Anti-Islam |
| Location |
|
Key people | Nicolai Sennels (2015) Rasmus Paludan (2016–17) |
| Affiliations | Fortress Europe |
For Frihed ("For Freedom") is a Danish organisation that supports free speech, and opposes what it sees as Islamisation and fundamentalist Islam in Denmark. [1] The organisation was originally part of the Pegida movement, and is part of the broader counter-jihad movement. [2]
The organisation was founded in January 2015 as Pegida Denmark by Nicolai Sennels, a former parliamentary candidate for the Danish People's Party. The group demonstrated in Copenhagen, initially with about 300 demonstrators, which later fell to about 50 in subsequent weekly demonstrations. In March the same year, the group changed its name to For Frihed. [1]
Sennels, a Copenhagen psychologist who has claimed that "Islam and Muslim culture have certain mechanisms which damages people's development and increases criminal behaviour," stepped down as leader in December 2015 to reassume his membership in the Danish People's Party. [3]
In January 2016 the organisation signed the "Prague Declaration" as part of the Fortress Europe coalition alongside several international groups such as the German Pegida movement. [4]
Also in January 2016, Tommy Robinson, Paul Weston and Anne Marie Waters of Pegida UK held speeches for the organisation. [5] [6] In February 2016, five counter-demonstrators were arrested at a demonstration, where Lars Hedegaard held a speech. [7] In September 2016 several counter-demonstrators were arrested as they threw smoke-bombs against For Frihed demonstrators. [8] A demonstration in December 2016 was also attacked, with three counter-demonstrators arrested. [9] In January 2017, For Frihed demonstrators were also attacked by counter-demonstrators. Danish People's Party politician Søren Krarup then held a speech at the demonstration. [10] Other speakers at its demonstrations have included Gavin Boby and Tatjana Festerling. [11]
For Frihed was represented by Rasmus Paludan as lawyer in 2016. [12] Paludan, who was also an active member of the group, in December 2016 had the windows of his office broken and white powder thrown in. [13] After having held controversial speeches for the organisation in 2016 that some considered to incite violence against Muslims, Paludan founded a new anti-Islam group and political party called Stram Kurs in 2017. [14] [15]
Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, commonly shortened to Jyllands-Posten or JP, is a Danish daily broadsheet newspaper. It is based in Aarhus C, Jutland, and with a weekday circulation of approximately 120,000 copies.
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons were first published by Jyllands-Posten in late September 2005; approximately two weeks later, nearly 3,500 people demonstrated peacefully in Copenhagen. In November, several European newspapers re-published the images, triggering more protests.
The International Free Press Society (IFPS), founded in 2009, is a creation of the Danish Free Press Society. The stated purpose of IFPS "is to defend freedom of expression wherever and by whomever it is threatened". It has been described as a key component of the counter-jihad movement.
Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) is a pan-European counter-jihad organisation with the stated goal of "preventing Islam from becoming a dominant political force in Europe". It is a political interest group which has been active in Denmark and has conducted anti-Islamic protests in the United Kingdom. The group originated out of the joining of the Danish group Stop Islamisation of Denmark with English anti-Islam activists.
Counter-jihad, also known as the counter-jihad movement, is a self-titled political current loosely consisting of authors, bloggers, think tanks, street movements and so on linked by beliefs that view Islam not as a religion but as an ideology that constitutes an existential threat to Western civilization. Consequently, counter-jihadists consider all Muslims as a potential threat, especially when they are already living within Western boundaries. Western Muslims accordingly are portrayed as a "fifth column", collectively seeking to destabilize Western nations' identity and values for the benefit of an international Islamic movement intent on the establishment of a caliphate in Western countries. The counter-jihad movement has been variously described as anti-Islamic, Islamophobic, inciting hatred against Muslims, and far-right. Influential figures in the movement include the bloggers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer in the US, and Geert Wilders and Tommy Robinson in Europe.
Anders Gravers Pedersen is a Danish anti-Islam activist. He is the chairman and founder of Stop Islamisation of Denmark (SIAD), and leader of Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE). He also established transatlantic connections with Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) and Stop Islamization of Nations (SION).
Stop Islamisation of Denmark is a Danish anti-Islam organisation founded in 2005. The group was founded by Anders Gravers Pedersen who began the development of the activist part of the counter-jihad movement.
Lars Hedegaard is a Danish author, historian, editor, journalist and critic of Islam. He established the International Free Press Society in 2009, an extension of the Danish Free Press Society founded in 2004, of which he served as chairman until 2014. Hedegaard was the subject of an assassination attempt in 2013, after which he has lived with police protection.
General elections were held in the Kingdom of Denmark on 5 June 2019 to elect all 179 members of the Folketing; 175 in Denmark proper, two in the Faroe Islands and two in Greenland. The elections took place ten days after the European Parliament elections.
Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West, abbreviated Pegida, is a pan-European, anti-Islam, far-right extremist political movement. German Pegida believes that Germany is being increasingly Islamicised and defines itself in opposition to Islamic extremism.
On 14–15 February 2015, three separate shootings occurred in Copenhagen, Denmark. In total, two victims and the perpetrator were killed, while five police officers were wounded.
Nikita Klæstrup is a Danish political commentator, fashion model and reality TV star. Klæstrup is a member of the Liberal Alliance but was a member of Young Conservatives until after the 2015 Danish general election.
Rasmus Paludan is a Danish-Swedish politician and lawyer, who is the founder and leader of the Danish political party Stram Kurs. Paludan has become known for his extremist views, including that Islam should be banned and that non-Western citizens should be deported from Denmark. He is considered by political scientists and media to be far-right and a right-wing extremist.
Stram Kurs is a nationalist, Anti-Islamic political party in Denmark and Sweden founded in 2017 by Danish-Swedish lawyer Rasmus Paludan. The party is almost exclusively associated with its founder and his anti-Islam activism and demonstrations. It is considered a radical far right fringe party by political scientists and news media.
Hate speech in Denmark is outlawed by § 266b of the penal code, colloquially called the racism paragraph (racismeparagraffen), which outlaws threats, mockery and degradation against groups defined by race, skin colour, nationality, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. The law was originally introduced in 1939, prompted by the antisemitism of 1930s Germany, which had spread to Denmark.
Lars Kragh Andersen, also known in the media as License-Lars, is a Danish anarcho-capitalist political activist, former policeman, internet troll, and YouTuber. He has on various occasions been fined, and both conditionally and unconditionally sentenced for violations of the Penal Code, the Firearms Act and the Personal Data Act. He has also gathered a lot of media attention.
The Freedom List is a Danish political group. A liberal party, it brands itself as promoting individual rights. It was founded during the COVID-19 pandemic in Denmark by prominent promoter of misinformation Fleming Blicher, and promotes refusal of government public health regulations, such as face masks and vaccines. The group was on the ballot in 26 municipalities and all 5 regions of Denmark in the 2021 Danish local elections, but did not win any seats.
The International Civil Liberties Alliance (ICLA) is an international counter-jihad organization that was originally founded in 2006, and which has spanned over twenty countries. Central to the organization has been Edward S. May of the Gates of Vienna blog, Alain Wagner and Christine Brim.
Nicolai Sennels is a Danish psychologist who founded Pegida Denmark in 2015. Sennels has for several years prior been noted for his views on Muslims and crime, including the assertion that inbreeding over several centuries has damaged the Muslim gene pool and that Muslims are raised to exert aggressive behaviour.
Helle Merete Brix is a Danish author, journalist and literary critic. She has been noted as a critic of Islam since the late 1990s, and was formerly associated with the Danish Free Press Society as editor of its online magazine Sappho until 2010, and was later a part of the Lars Vilks Committee.