Danish Religious Groups Denounce Law Limiting Foreign Funding of Mosques

Turk­ish media is report­ing that the Dan­ish branch of a Turk­ish gov­ern­ment foun­da­tion and a Dan­ish orga­ni­za­tion with Islamist ties are denounc­ing a Dan­ish law lim­it­ing the abil­i­ty of mosques to receive for­eign finan­cial sup­port. Accord­ing to the Hür­riyet report:

March 13, 2021 The Dan­ish Mus­lim Union and the Dan­ish Diyanet Foun­da­tion react­ed to a law lim­it­ing mosques oper­at­ing in the coun­try from receiv­ing eco­nom­ic sup­port from abroad. Speak­ing to a reporter from run Anadolu Agency, Dan­ish Islam­ic Soci­ety (DIT) Pres­i­dent Mustafa İnc­ikli said that the law lim­it­ing mosques from receiv­ing eco­nom­ic sup­port from abroad upset them and put all mosques under sus­pi­cion. İnc­ikli stat­ed that legal action must be tak­en against mosques that receive finan­cial sup­port from abroad and harm Den­mark’s demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues, but there is no such mosque in Den­mark, and they do not accept such accusations. […]

The Dan­ish Diyanet Foun­da­tion also react­ed to the law. In its state­ment, it empha­sized that almost all of the over 100 laws enact­ed in Den­mark in the last five years regard­ing minori­ties and immi­grants are restric­tions. The state­ment also said that it is alarm­ing that a com­plete­ly mar­gin­al­iz­ing and pro­hib­i­tive men­tal­i­ty pre­vails in the poli­cies regard­ing immi­grants and for­eign­ers: “The list of banned reli­gious offi­cials, the list of banned donors, the burqa/veil ban, the oblig­a­tion to shake hands for cit­i­zen­ship, the ghet­to law, and the laws and draft laws like those demand­ing to ban the Dan­ish Diyanet Foun­da­tion’s activ­i­ties are clear proof that a pro­hi­bi­tion­ist under­stand­ing is on the rise in Denmark.”

[Trans­lat­ed by Google Trans­late with edits]

Read the rest here.

The Dan­sk Tyrkisk Islamisk Stif­telse (Dan­ish Turk­ish Islam­ic Foun­da­tion or Dan­ish Diyanet Foun­da­tion) is the Dan­ish branch of the Diyanet, the Turk­ish state insti­tu­tion respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing reli­gious affairs. The Foun­da­tion employs the imams sent to Turk­ish mosques in Den­mark and admin­is­ters the mosques along with the Turk­ish embassy in Copen­hagen, much the same as DITIB, Diyanet’s French and Ger­man organization.

Accord­ing to the arti­cle, İnc­ikli also spoke on behalf of the Dan­sk Mus­lim­sk Union (Dan­ish Mus­lim Union), which calls itself a nation­al union of Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions and asso­ci­a­tions. Between its Face­book page and web­site, it includes sev­er­al orga­ni­za­tions with Islamist connections:

• Dan­sk Islamisk Råd (Dan­ish Islam­ic Coun­cil), a co-founder of the Fed­er­a­tion of Islam­ic Orga­ni­za­tions in Europe (now the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims)

• Det Islamiske Trossam­fund (The Islam­ic Faith Soci­ety) which has his­tor­i­cal con­nec­tions to the Glob­al Mus­lim Brotherhood.

• Dan­sk Islamisk Tross­fam­fund (The Dan­ish Islam­ic Faith Soci­ety) coop­er­ates with the Turk­ish Islamist Mil­lî Görüş move­ment in inter­na­tion­al projects such as pil­grim­ages. The Dan­sk Islamisk Tross­fam­fund’s reg­is­tered address is almost iden­ti­cal to that of the DMU, and Pres­i­dent İnc­ikli has also pre­vi­ous­ly spo­ken on behalf of both organizations.

Pre­vi­ous GIOR report­ing on Turk­ish influ­ence in west­ern Europe has included:

• In Decem­ber 2020, we report­ed on coop­er­a­tion between DITIB and Mil­lî Görüş in France.

• In Novem­ber 2020, we report­ed on Turk­ish-Ger­man orga­ni­za­tions protest­ing a Turk­ish offi­cial’s requests for DITIB to sup­ply can­di­dates to teach Turk­ish in mosques.

• The same month, we report­ed about Ger­man gov­ern­ment asser­tions that Erdoğan’s Jus­tice and Devel­op­ment Par­ty (AKP) was inten­si­fy­ing its rela­tions with Mil­lî Görüş in Germany.