Danes Study Immigrants

As part of the prolonged national headache caused by a Danish newspaper’s decision to publish 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005, last weekend’s attack on one of the cartoonists responsible had a certain awful inevitability about it. [...]
“I’m sorry to say, but it’s déjà vu — every time we experience an episode, then in 10 minutes we have them saying we have to have a new law,” said Naser Khader, a member of Parliament and the spokesman on foreign affairs and immigration for the Conservative People’s Party. He was speaking of the increasingly powerful Danish People’s Party, whose votes the government relies on to pass legislation and whose populist, anti-immigrant rhetoric has informed and inflamed debate in recent years.
After the attack, the People’s Party leader, Pia Kjaersgaard, said that it should be easier to deport Danes linked to terrorists. “It must be crystal clear to everyone in this country that we cannot accept having Islamists who associate with terror being more or less tolerated in this country,” she said.
Mr. Khader is just as hostile toward Islamists as anyone in Danish politics; he recently proposed banning burqas. But he said the latest comments had gone too far. “You have to be responsible when such incidents happen, and not let emotions take over,” he said.
New details about the suspect in the attack on the cartoonist, 74-year-old Kurt Westergaard, have increased complaints that the security service has been lax in monitoring people suspected of being terrorist sympathizers.

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