COPENHAGEN: Denmark on Friday said it plans to ban Qur'an burnings after a string of desecrations of Islam’s holy book in the Scandinavian nation sparked anger in Muslim countries.
Denmark stepped up security earlier this month following the backlash, as did neighboring Sweden which has also seen a spate of Qur’an burnings in recent months.
The Danish government intends to “criminalize the improper treatment of objects of significant religious importance to a religious community,” Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard told reporters.
He said the proposed legislation was aimed especially at burnings and desecrations in public places.
Hummelgaard said Qur'an burnings were a “fundamentally contemptuous and unsympathetic act” that “harm Denmark and its interests.”
The new legislation would be included in chapter 12 of Denmark’s penal code, which covers national security.
Hummelgaard said that national security was the main “motivation” for the ban.
Nearly a thousand protesters attempted to march to the Danish embassy in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone in late July, following a call by firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr.
“We can’t continue to stand by with our arms crossed while several individuals do everything they can to provoke violent reactions,” Hummelgaard said.
Sweden and Denmark beefed up border controls in early August as a result of the reactions. Denmark ended the measure on August 22, though they remain in place in Sweden.
The proposed Danish legislation would also apply to desecrations of the Bible, the Torah or, for example, a crucifix.
Those who break the law risk a fine or up to two years in prison.
The law will however not encompass “verbal or written expressions” offensive to religious communities, including caricatures, the justice minister said.
He stressed Denmark remained firmly committed to its freedom of expression laws, amid criticism from several opposition parties who fear a ban would infringe on those.
The ban, due to be presented to parliament on September 1, comes six years after Denmark abolished its 334-year-old blasphemy law.
The bill is expected to pass through parliament, where the left-right government holds a majority.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said Friday the Qur'an burnings had sparked “enormous anger in the entire world.”
“We have made great efforts to contain this anger. At the moment the situation is fairly calm, but it’s also uncertain and unpredictable,” he told reporters.
He said that in the “short term, we’ll probably see more Qur'an burnings rather than less” before the new law goes into force.
In 2006, a wave of anti-Danish anger and violence erupted in the Muslim world following the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Sweden last week heightened its terror alert level to grade four on a scale of five after the Qur'an burnings made the country a “prioritized target,” security services said.
The Swedish government has condemned the desecrations of the Qur'an while upholding the country’s constitutionally protected freedom of speech and assembly laws.
It has vowed to explore legal means of stopping protests involving the burning of holy texts in certain circumstances.
Denmark to ban Qur’an burnings
https://arab.news/jtuhw
Denmark to ban Qur’an burnings
- New legislation aimed especially at burnings and desecrations in public places
- Copenhagen stepped up security following backlash in Muslim countries
NATO wants ‘automated’ defenses along borders with Russia: German general
- That zone would act as a defensive buffer before any enemy forces advanced into “a sort of hot zone,” said Lowin
- The AI-guided system would reinforce existing NATO weapons and deployed forces, the general said
FRANKFURT: NATO is moving to boost its defenses along European borders with Russia by creating an AI-assisted “automated zone” not reliant on human ground forces, a German general said in comments published Saturday.
That zone would act as a defensive buffer before any enemy forces advanced into “a sort of hot zone” where traditional combat could happen, said General Thomas Lowin, NATO’s deputy chief of staff for operations.
He was speaking to the German Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
The automated area would have sensors to detect enemy forces and activate defenses such as drones, semi-autonomous combat vehicles, land-based robots, as well as automatic air defenses and anti-missile systems, Lowin said.
He added, however, that any decision to use lethal weapons would “always be under human responsibility.”
The sensors — located “on the ground, in space, in cyberspace and in the air” — would cover an area of several thousand kilometers (miles) and detect enemy movements or deployment of weapons, and inform “all NATO countries in real time,” he said.
The AI-guided system would reinforce existing NATO weapons and deployed forces, the general said.
The German newspaper reported that there were test programs in Poland and Romania trying out the proposed capabilities, and all of NATO should be working to make the system operational by the end of 2027.
NATO’s European members are stepping up preparedness out of concern that Russia — whose economy is on a war footing because of its conflict in Ukraine — could seek to further expand, into EU territory.
Poland is about to sign a contract for “the biggest anti-drone system in Europe,” its defense minister, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
Kosiniak-Kamysz did not say how much the deal, involving “different types of weaponry,” would cost, nor which consortium would ink the contract at the end of January.
He said it was being made to respond to “an urgent operational demand.”
