This article appeared in the International Herald Tribune on the first of January, back when the cartoon riots were just starting to achieve launch speed. The second half of the piece sheds considerable light on the Danish approach to freedom of speech, particularly with respect to its Muslim citizens -- no matter how offensive.
Danish counterterrorism officials say a growing number of young Danish Muslims are being drawn to Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Liberation, a radical Muslim group that calls for creation of an Islamic caliphate and whose goal is the unification of all Muslim countries under one leader who would implement Sharia, the Islamic legal code. The group, which distributes its literature at mosques and on the Internet, is banned in most of the Muslim world, as well as in Russia and Germany, but it is allowed to operate in Denmark and Britain.Terrorism experts say the group has played a major role in the radicalization of disaffected Muslim youth. But because its main weapon is ideology rather than explosives, Danish officials say, it is allowed to operate under the same permissive rules that allowed the publication of the cartoons.
Under Danish law, inciting someone to commit an act of terror is illegal, but spouting vitriol against the West or satirizing Muhammad is not. The State Prosecutor's Office investigated the group in the spring of 2004 and decided not to ban it since it was not breaking the law.
Still, legal experts say that groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir are pushing the limits of Denmark's free-speech rules. Claus Bergsoe, a Danish lawyer who has defended Islamic militants, said that balancing civil liberties and fighting terrorism had become harder since Sept. 11 and that the government was beginning to clamp down.
In the first prosecution under new counterterrorism laws introduced in 2002, a Moroccan-born Danish publisher, Said Mansour, was charged in September with inciting fellow Muslims to holy war by producing and distributing CDs and DVDs showing beheadings in Chechnya and glorifying suicide bombers. His defense counsel described the material as "controversial art." Mansour remains in custody.
Yet Hizb ut-Tahrir continues to flourish. Abu-Laban, the Muslim community leader, who also does outreach work with Muslim youth, said he had personally observed the influence of the group. He said Hizb ut-Tahrir recruited his son Taim, a 17-year-old student, by focusing on the grievances of the Muslim world in Iraq, Palestine and Chechnya, and playing on his sense of alienation by offering him instant heroism and a strong sense of identity.
In December, Taim, formerly a straight-A pupil, was expelled from Vester Borgerdyd, a Danish public school with a large Muslim minority, after teachers overheard him giving sermons calling for the destruction of Israel and assailing Danish democracy during Friday prayers at the school.
Abu-Laban blames Hizb ut-Tahrir for encouraging Taim, who has since been ordered out of the house by his father.
Consequences followed.
At the Vester Borgerdyd school, whose walls are lined with photographs of smiling students in Muslim dress, the headmistress, Anne Birgitte Rasmussen, said that Taim had been attracting a large following and that she feared his sermons would raise tensions among the school's more moderate Muslims.
After his expulsion, a committee of Danish rectors banned Friday prayers at all public schools across Denmark. Danish officials say that the maintenance of civil order trumps freedom of speech in the public school system.
"The tone of the political debate in this country, the talk about Muslims and immigrants, is making it very difficult for us," Rasmussen said.
It's also making it difficult for the Muslim immigrants. But, as always, the blame must lie elsewhere. It's never their fault.
In a secluded community center a few blocks from the school, Fadi Abdul Latif, the spokesman of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Denmark, said in an interview that the ban on school prayer was just the latest outrage from a political establishment that was trying to criminalize Islam in order to discredit the religion.
"The government says it's O.K. to make jokes about urinating on the Koran," Abdul Latif said. "They are inciting violence and provocation so that they can make new laws that discriminate even more against Muslims."
He added that the anti-Muslim rhetoric of the Danish People's Party had contributed to a swelling of Hizb ut-Tahrir's ranks in recent months.
"When Muslims see the discrimination here, they begin to listen," Abdul Latif said.
In 2002, Abdul Latif was charged with distributing hate literature that attacked Jews and praised suicide bombers as martyrs. A leaflet quoted a verse from the Koran: "And kill them from wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out." He received a 60-day suspended sentence.
In 2004, Abdul Latif distributed a flyer exhorting Muslims to "go help your brothers in Falluja and exterminate your rulers if they block your way."
Abdul Latif, a Palestinian who grew up in a refugee camp in Lebanon before moving to Copenhagen in 1986, said the call to arms was aimed at fighters in the Muslim world - not in Denmark. He said he had been called in for questioning by the police over the summer, but had continued to distribute his pamphlets unhindered.
And yet ... And yet ...
Even Hizb ut-Tahrir's fiercest critics, such as Rose, the editor behind the Muhammad cartoons, say the group should be allowed to operate as long as it does not break the law.
But Rose acknowledges that even his liberalism has its limits. He said he would not publish a cartoon of Israel's Ariel Sharon strangling a Palestinian baby, since that could be construed as "racist." He would, however, publish a cartoon poking fun at Moses or one of Jesus drinking a pint of beer.
"Muslims should be allowed to burn the Danish flag in a public square if that's within the boundaries of the law," he said. "Though I think this would be a strange signal to the Danish people who have hosted them."
