The tiny crowd for freedom

On February 21st, the Danish Free Press Society invited the political parties to a meeting in the Danish parliament building Christiansborg to hear what practical proposals they would launch in defense of free expression, on the occasion on the assassination attempt on the undersigned.

And they all came – except for the left wing extremists Enhedslisten (“The Unity List”), who had not been invited. This due to a justifiable doubt as to whether a pro-communist party and supporter of various terrorist movements would be in favor of free expression in the first place.

Everyone spoke warmly about freedom of expression, but only two of the seven parties had practical proposals for improving the protection of free speech.

One of those was MP Simon Emil Ammitzbøll (Liberal Alliance, a libertarian party), who demanded harsher punishments for those trying to curb free expression, and extradition if committed by foreigners. Furthermore, he would refuse to grant citizenship to foreigners seeking to undermine democracy in Denmark.

Kristian Thulesen Dahl, the chairman of Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People’s Party) was in broad agreement with these proposals, and went further with another four proposals:

1)    Tightening of the laws against terrorism,

2)    Citizenship can be granted conditionally, so that immigrants may lose it if they do not live up to reasonable expectations for new citizens,

3)    Economic support for persons who have lost their income due to exercising their right to free expression, and

4)    Economic support for organizations working to defend freedom of expression. In practical terms, the DPP chairman proposed that the state would dedicate Dkr 8 million (€1.08 million) annually for the purpose.

The other representatives brought forth no practical proposals, probably to the relief of the forces who, violently or not, are working to restrict what can be said. At the same time, most of them utilized the invitation from the Free Press Society to express their disgust over the views of the victim of the would-be assassination.

Even the notion of supporting freedom of speech without condemning specific statements appears alien to them.

Thus, the latest attempted political assassination in Denmark has not made any party change its views. Foreigners coming to our country with the intention of destroying democracy, freedom, equality and the rule of law are still being welcomed – and can count on being subsidized by the friendly Danish state.

As long as the existing majority dominates the Danish parliament, nothing will happen, and it will likely be at least two years until the next elections.

The two parties who in practice proved that they take the protection of free expression seriously, Liberal Alliance and Dansk Folkeparti, can, according to current opinion polls, expect to take just over a combined 20 percent of the vote.

One cannot avoid pondering just how many more assassination attempts it will take before the majority in parliament either admits that freedom of expression has been done away with, or take effective measures to put its enemies out of action.

Swedish