European Muslim Brotherhood Umbrella Says Denmark’s Proposed Hijab Ban is “Discriminatory and Inciteful”; Government Commission Reverses Recommendations

On 30 August 2022, the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims (CEM) issued a press state­ment say­ing a pro­posed ban on hijabs (Islam­ic head­scarves) in Dan­ish pri­ma­ry schools by a gov­ern­men­tal com­mis­sion on women’s rights was dis­crim­i­na­to­ry and “incite­ful against Mus­lims in Europe.” Accord­ing to the state­ment on the CEM website:

Hijab ban rec­om­men­da­tion vio­lates free­dom of reli­gion, and can nev­er be a solu­tion to social prob­lems with­in the so-called immi­grant soci­eties in Den­mark. Such top­ics should not be used as a polit­i­cal tool dur­ing elec­tions, as it incites dis­crim­i­na­tion against Mus­lims. We call upon the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty in Den­mark to uni­fy their posi­tion towards the proposal.

Read the rest here.

In its state­ment, the CEM also said that they com­mend­ed the oppo­si­tion of the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in Den­mark to the hijab proposal.

The top­ic stirred con­tro­ver­sy in late August after a gov­ern­ment-appoint­ed com­mis­sion rec­om­mend­ed a series of mea­sures to ban reli­gious gar­ments in pri­ma­ry schools. The expressed pur­pose of the “Com­mis­sion for the For­got­ten Women’s Strug­gle” is to devel­op ideas on how Den­mark could ensure that women with minor­i­ty back­grounds can enjoy the same rights and free­doms as oth­er Dan­ish women. Mea­sures also includ­ed strength­en­ing sex edu­ca­tion in pri­ma­ry schools and tight­en­ing con­trol of Mus­lim inde­pen­dent schools. Sev­er­al orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the main Dan­ish Islam­ic foun­da­tion, have crit­i­cized the pro­posed hijab ban, say­ing it would result in more polar­iza­tion and harm in schools. The com­mis­sion short­ly lat­er reversed course and includ­ed an exemp­tion for old­er pri­ma­ry school students.

The CEM, pre­vi­ous­ly known as The Fed­er­a­tion of Islam­ic Orga­ni­za­tions in Europe (FIOE), describes itself as a “cul­tur­al orga­ni­za­tion, with hun­dreds of mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions spread across 28 Euro­pean States, all sub­scrib­ing to a com­mon belief in a method­ol­o­gy based on mod­er­a­tion and bal­ance, which rep­re­sents the tol­er­ance of Islam.”  In real­i­ty, the CEM is an umbrel­la group com­pris­ing the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe. Its cur­rent Pres­i­dent is Abdul­lah Ben­man­sour, a long-time leader of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in France. The CEM has a head­quar­ters office in Brus­sels and has suc­cess­ful­ly posi­tioned itself as a “dia­log part­ner” for the EU and oth­er impor­tant insti­tu­tions. The CEM has also spawned numer­ous oth­er orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Euro­pean Coun­cil for Fat­wa and Research (ECFR) and the Fed­er­a­tion of Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions (FEMYSO).