A video showing Danish schoolchildren being trained how to perform a Muslim prayer and chant “Allahu Akbar” has stoked controversy.
The clip shows a boy of African descent in Muslim clothing demonstrating the Islamic prayer to a group of mainly ethnically Danish children.
He is then interrupted by a teacher who instructs the kids to say “Allahu Akbar,” after which the entire class kneels in prayer.
“The prayer took place at Thyregod School in Velje municipality in southern Jutland in November 2018,” reports Sputnik.
The clip was filmed by a Sudanese mother of one of the children. She was explicitly told not to upload the video to the Internet but did so anyway.
After the video was leaked, numerous people called for schools officials to resign, claiming that children were being ‘indoctrinated’ into Islam. According to headmaster Gert Hougaard, he has “never experienced anything like this”.
The Danish People’s Party’s Martin Henriksen demanded an explanation from the school and whether parental permission had been obtained, but was merely told that this was a routine part of the curriculum.
He also asked school management if they intended to teach pupils Islam’s “dark sides and widespread fundamentalism,” in addition to its “massive religious and social control.”
Numerous similar videos showing children in European countries being taught how to adopt Muslim practices have previously emerged.
Strangely enough though, there appear to be very few videos of Muslim kids being taught how to worship Christ in Christian churches.
In response to a jihadist terror attack in Vienna last week, the government of Austria will pass a law making it illegal to spread “political Islam” in the country.
The European nation’s capital was shook when a lone gunman killed four people and injured 23 others during a rampage that began in the city’s historic quarter. The culprit, 20-year-old Kujtim Fejzullai, was an ISIS sympathizer.
In response, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced new measures that would make preaching “political Islam” a criminal offense.
“We will create a criminal offence called ‘political Islam’ in order to be able to take action against those who are not terrorists themselves, but who create the breeding ground for them,” Kurz tweeted.
Im Kampf gegen den politischen Islam werden wir einen Straftatbestand „Politischer Islam“ schaffen, um gegen diejenigen vorgehen zu können, die selbst keine Terroristen sind, aber den Nährboden für solche schaffen.
Another measure set to be voted on by Parliament next month would see individuals convicted of terror offences kept behind bars for life.
As we previously highlighted, despite facing a worst threat than Austria, the French government hasn’t taken similar measures.
However, President Macron has faced global protests from the Muslim world simply for re-affirming the pre-eminence of free speech and suggesting tighter border controls.
The Danish newspaper that provoked violent worldwide protests after publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in 2005 has refused to do so again, with its editor-in-chief commenting, “Violence works.”
The decision follows the beheading of school teacher Samuel Paty in Paris for showing similar cartoons to pupils in his class and another attack yesterday in Nice during which three people were killed near a church, including a woman who was decapitated.
The culprit in Paris was a Chechen refugee who French authorities had given residency papers to back in March, while the jihadist in Nice was a boat migrant who arrived in Italy from Tunisia last month.
Now Jacob Nybroe, editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten, says his newspaper will not accept ads being run by Danish political party the New Right, which includes cartoons of Mohammad, due to the risk of a violent backlash.
The cartoons are being run in collaboration with Charlie Hebdo to “show support for the victims of Islamic violence,” but Nybroe says his newspaper can play no part in it.
“Security for us is unfortunately not a theoretical, moral, or political consideration,” Nybroe said.
“I wish it was different, that we could express ourselves freely, as we do in all other matters. But violence works,” he added.
“Only in one circumstance do we show caution – that is, in fact, a censorship inflicted on us by threats: we do not show drawings of the Prophet Muhammad,” Nybroe explained.
After Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons to spark a debate about criticism of Islam, the move prompted global violent riots as well as numerous threats against newspaper staff.
The backlash was described by former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as “Denmark’s worst international crisis since World War II.”
Three other Danish newspapers said they would review the cartoons before deciding whether to publish them.