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CAIRO – Plans to build two mosques in the Danish capital Copenhagen to serve the Muslim community are facing some resistance and stirring a hot debate in the Scandinavian country, especially over funding from overseas.
"There’s very strong pressure — people living here don’t want it," Per Nielsen, a 56-year-old retired history teacher, told The New York Times on Thursday, November 12.
Copenhagen City Council has given the green-light to build two mosques to serve each of the Sunni and Shiite communities.
But the plans are opposed by the anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party (DPP), which is preparing for the November 17 local elections.
"We are against the mosque," said Martin Henriksen, a DPP official, referring to the mosque dedicated to Shiites.
"It’s obvious to everyone that the Iranian regime has something to do with it… The Iranian regime is based on a fascist identity that we don’t want to set foot in Denmark."
Imam Abdul Wahid Pedersen, a Muslim leader who chairs a 15-member committee promoting construction of one of the two mosques, defended the plans.
"If someone wants to chip in, that is O.K.," he told NYT.
"But they will have no influence on running the place."
Denmark has a Muslim minority of nearly 250,000 out of its 5.4 million-strong population.
Islam is the country's second largest religion after the state-run Lutheran Protestant Church.
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Copenhagen Deputy Mayor Klaus Bondam, 45, defended the right of Danish Muslims to build mosques.
He said they are not concerned about the funding for the mosques as long as the sources were listed openly.
Bondam noted that the ongoing debate on the mosques construction helps give ammunition to the anti-immigrant DPP.
In the 2007 parliamentary election, the DPP took 25 seats in the 179-member legislature, remaining the third largest party in Denmark.
While not being a part of the cabinet, it maintains a close cooperation with the government parties on most issues.
Some welcome the constructions of the new mosques as a step to improve ties between Denmark and its Muslims.
"I wrote a front-page story saying we somehow had to reconnect to the Muslims, to collect money to build a mosque as a sign of solidarity," said Herbert Pundik, former editor of Politiken daily.
"The steam went out of the project."
Denmark has had tense relations with its Muslims and the Muslim world at large after a mass-circulation daily published in 2005 satirical cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).
Preben Anderson, a 61-year-old bricklayer, also supports mosque construction.
"We have churches. We have to have mosques."
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