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The 'Danish People's Party' (Danish: ''Dansk Folkeparti'') is a social conservative, nationalist political party in Denmark. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, it took 24 seats out of 179 (an increase of 2 seats), with 13.3% of the vote, making it the third largest party in Denmark.
Since 2001 the party has supported a government consisting of the Liberal and Conservative parties. The Danish People's Party regards itself as center-right, but is often accused of being right-wing, populist, or xenophobic by those who oppose it.
Its chairwoman is Pia Kjærsgaard. In the European Parliament its single MEP, Mogens Camre, sits as a member of the Union for a Europe of Nations grouping.

Contents

History

Policies

Controversy

The popularity of DPP

Quotes

Results

See also

References

External links

History

The party was founded on October 6, 1995, after Pia Kjærsgaard, Kristian Thulesen Dahl, Poul Nødgaard and Ole Donner left the Progress Party. The party made its electoral debut in the 1998 Danish parliamentary election winning 13 seats. Later, in the 2001 election, they won 22 seats. They became the third largest party in the parliament and supported the Conservative-Liberal coalition government, headed by Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in exchange for the implementation of some of their key demands such as strict policies on immigration. The party won 24 seats in the 2005 election.
In 2006, the party's popularity rose dramatically in opinion polls following the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, at the expense of Social Democrats. This effect largely waned with the falling media attention to the cartoons controversy^[1].

Policies

The party's policies include:

★ To drastically reduce immigration, especially on non-western immigrants

★ To improve conditions for the elderly

★ To oppose a reduction of Denmark's sovereignty by the EU

★ To maintain the monarchy, and the current Danish constitution

★ Stricter punishments on rape, violence and reckless driving

★ To oppose a multiethnic Danish society

★ Grants for specific research into terrorism, islamism and cold-war history

★ To continue the current status of the National Church
Cooperation with the Conservative-Liberal coalition government resulted in the implementation of some of their key demands, such as strong anti-immigration policies resulting in what has been described as Europe's strictest immigration laws. The new government enacted rules that prevented Danish citizens and others from bringing a foreign spouse into the country unless both partners were aged 24 or over, passed a solvency test showing the Dane had not claimed social security for 12 months and could lodge a bond of 55,241 kroner (about 9300 USD).^[2] One declared aim of this was to fight arranged marriages. These new rules had the effect that while about 8,151 family reunification permits were granted in 2002, the number had fallen to 3,525 by 2005.^[3] Some social benefits for refugees were also cut by 30-40% during their first seven years in the country, ordinary unemployment benefit being replaced by a reduced ''start-up aid''. Whereas the government coalition's declared aim with this was to improve integration by inciting people to work, immigration spokesman Søren Krarup of the Danish People's Party has expressed his content in that the start-up aid has decreased the number of economical refugees greatly, showing them that ''"one does not find gold in the streets in Denmark"''.^[4]
The changes to Denmark's immigration laws drew some criticism from the former social democratic government of Sweden, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner. In a response to the criticism from the Swedish government Pia Kjaersgaard said: ''"If they want to turn Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmö into a Scandinavian Beirut, with clan wars, honour killings and gang rapes, let them do it. We can always put a barrier on the Øresund Bridge."''^[5] Although the latter remark about the Øresund Bridge was ironically intended, it caused some criticism in Sweden.
The DPP supported the coalition government in deploying Danish military forces to Iraq.
In March 2007, DPP representatives (such as Peter Skaarup) proposed that forced chemical castration should be used on sexual offenders. ^[6]

Controversy

The party has been part of controversy, especially because of their criticism of immigration and Muslims^[7][8][9], who compose approximately 6% of the total Danish population. Like other members of the party, the party leader Pia Kjærsgaard, has been accused of racism several times.^[10] In 2003, Pia Kjærsgaard lost a libel suit against a Communist opponent, Karen Sunds, who had characterized her as having "racist views".[1] Two lower courts ruled in favour of Kjærsgaard, but the Supreme Court acquitted Sunds of libel. The court based its decision on a deposition of the Danish Language Board, stating that the word "racist" now has a wider meaning than just racism, including anything deemed "discriminating" or"xenophobic". This verdict leaned on a former ruling of the European Court of Human Rights.^[11]
A party spokesman, Søren Krarup, has said that ''“Muslim immigration is a way for Muslims to conquer us, just as they have done 1,400 years past.”'' According to ''Le Monde'' of December 11, 2005, an imam requested the censure of a Danish People’s Party deputy who, speaking in Parliament, drew a comparison between Muslim women who wear headscarves and Nazi's sporting swastikas.^[12] Party leader Pia Kjaersgaard has also drawn domestic criticism for lashing out at Danish Islamic organizations who had criticized the publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, by describing them as a "fifth column" and "seeds of weed".^[13]
The party is known to have a centralized style of leadership and a lower tolerance for dissenting opinions, as compared to most other Danish parties. Parliamentary candidates need to be approved by the central board, and several times members have been excluded for raising public critique of the leading figures.^[14] The official party line states these measures are necessary to avoid internal fights as those that led to the split-up of the Progress Party, a predecessor of the DPP.
In August 2006 undercover journalists of the tabloid Ekstra Bladet contacted 18 local districts of the DPP, saying that they were members of the extreme-right network Dansk Front and wanted to join the DPP. Half of the district chairmen turned the request down, whereas the other half said party membership was OK, provided any extreme-right views were kept privately. When the tabloid published the story, the latter nine district chairmen were immediately excluded from the party.^[15].
In Israel, the anti-immigration laws introduced by the People's Party in Denmark were quoted with approval, as a precedent, in the ongoing debate about the so-called Israeli citizenship law, denying the chance of family reunification to Israelis who marry Palestinians from the Occupied Territories - though in fact, the Israeli law goes a considerable distance beyond the Danish, expliticly and categorically denying family reunification to spouses of a particular ethnic origin, whatever their economic status.

The popularity of DPP

The DPP have been met with controversy from the other parties and from the press ever since the party was founded. However, starting with a modest number of votes, the party has grown at every single election since then. While the immigration policy is of great importance to the party, there are other issues that add to the popularity of the party:

★ ''Ideological Novelty:'' The DPP combines support of the welfare state, and particularly benefits for pensioners, with strongly conservative policies on immigration and law and order. As such it is distinctive from the mainstream parties and offers policies which appeal across the traditional right-left dividing line. Polls have shown that a great deal of the party's voters are former Social Democrats, concerned with the decline of the welfare state. An analysis by the trade union SiD after the 2001 election stated that among unskilled workers aged under 40, 30% voted for DPP and only 25% for the Social Democrats. ^[16]

★ ''Euroscepticism:'' In Denmark, only two parties have been against all new EU treaties throughout their existence. Those parties are DPP and the left-wing Enhedslisten. Whereas most established politicians favour a more dominant EU, the public opinion is broadly sceptical and in favour of the national state keeping its powers. Referendums brought the rejection of the Maastricht treaty and the Euro. The DPP has managed to harness this scepticism in a more popular way than the left-wingers.

★ ''Outspokenness:'' Pia Kjærsgaard, a former domestic nurse, is distinctive from the traditional political class of economists and academics and appeals to the "common man". Combined with the clear stance in the immigration issue and the rejection of political correctness, this has given her strong support among workers and lower middle class voters who do not support elitist politicians.

Quotes

★ Mogens Camre, Danish People's Party's annual meeting (September 16, 2001):

"The Islamic political-religious movement deals with world supremacy, as did other fanatic political ideologies in history. This world supremacy they are not able to achieve by military means, but try to achieve by flooding the world with people. All western countries are infiltrated by the Muslims - and some of them speak to us nicely, while they wait to be many enough to have us removed - like in the Sudan, Indonesia, Nigeria and in the Balkans."^[17]

''Note: the written copy of Camre's speech, as handed out to the press, has been claimed to state ''"kill us"'' in place of ''"have us removed".''()

★ Pia Kjærsgaard, during the opening debate of the Danish Folketing (October 4, 2001):

"It has been mentioned that September 11 became the beginning of a fight between civilizations. I don't agree about this, because a fight between civilisations would imply that there were two civilisations, and that is not the case. There is only one civilization, and that is ours. Our opponents can't plead to belong to a civilisation, because a civilised world would never be able to carry out an attack which contains so much hatred, so much savagery, so much abomination. With this, I regard September 11 as an attack on civilisation itself. On the civilisation which decent people have built up during decades and centuries, and which is based on uprightness and freedom. The others want to implement ferocity, the primitive, the barbaric, the medieval."^[18]

★ MP and immigration spokesman Jesper Langballe, DR news, (December 4, 2005):

"We know the problem lies in those Muslim groups that come from the Middle East, and that other immigrant groups are harmless. So if Denmark shall not lock itself in totally, we have to distinguish between ethnic and religious groups. In fact I mean simply Muslims from all countries and not just in the Middle East."^[19]

★ Internal email to MPs from the party's press secretary Søren Espersen:

"Criticism of Islam as such and Muslims in general are not the political business of DPP. But direct, purposeful, unambiguous critique of and dissociation from Islamism and Islamists are both welcome and necessary."MPs.^[20]

The [Muslim] veil is a political manifestation, like how the black shirts were for the Fascists of Italy, or the Swastika was for the troops of Hitler.^[21]

★ Mogens Camre, DPP member of the European parliament

I believe that all Muslim communities are, by definition, loser communities. The Muslims are not capable of critical thinking.^[21]

★ Morten Messerschmidt, DPP member of the Danish parliament

★ Pia Kjærsgaard's newsletter (February 25, 2002):

"The Social Security Act is passé, because it was tailored to a Danish family tradition and work moral and not to Muslims for whom it is fair to be provided for by others, while the wife gives birth to a lot of children. The child benefit grant is being taken advantage of, as an immigrant achieves a record income due to a small dozen of children. New punishment limits must be introduced for gang rapes, because the problem only arrived with the vandalism of the many anti-social second generation immigrants." ^[23]

Results

Election	# of seats won	# of total votes	% of popular vote
1998	13	252,429	7.4%
2001	22	413,987	12%
2005	24	444,205	13.2%

See also

★ Politics of Denmark

References

1. http://www.catinet.dk/default.asp?page=opinion/df.html
2. http://www.udlst.dk/english/Family+Reunification/Spouses/Default.htm
3. http://www.udlst.dk/NR/rdonlyres/e6kr3ge46gzp36obsg2kgvmes7ahj4lqrpgowevsclj553ug6cemmug5c5ldnb7lajjb7cjiqfyi2g5gwjhzzuemkae/Jan+-+feb+2006.xls
4. ''Dagbladet Information,'' 8 December 2006
5. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4276963.stm
6. http://www.cphpost.dk/get/100666.html
7. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/04/06/wrace06.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/04/06/ixworld.html
8. http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw99-2000/denmark.htm
9. http://www.danskfolkeparti.dk/sw/frontend/newsletterpreview.asp?id=214&template_id=10&mbid=19083
10. http://www.hamlet2002.org/quotes.htm
11. http://www.ittext.dk/sunds.html
12. UN report E/CN.4/2006/17
13. [
http://www.danskfolkeparti.dk/sw/frontend/newsletterpreview.asp?id=362&template_id=10&mbid=19083
http://www.danskfolkeparti.dk/sw/frontend/newsletterpreview.asp?id=362&template_id=10&mbid=19083]
14. http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Politik/2006/10/06/132541.htm
15. http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Politik/2006/08/21/112708.htm
16. ''Dansk Folkeblad'', vol. 4, 2002.
17. http://www.ole-krarup.dk/pages/1.php?nr=39
18. http://ft.dk/?/samling/20061/MENU/00000002.htm
19. http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Politik/2005/12/04/131947.htm
20. http://www.humanisme.dk/artikler/kronik067.php
21. http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2007/04/20/025251.htm
22. http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2007/04/20/025251.htm
23. http://www.danskfolkeparti.dk/sw/frontend/detail.asp?parent=19106&typeid=13&id=169&menu_parent=&layout=0

External links

★ Dansk Folkeparti - Official site

★ Dansk Folkeparti - Official site

★ Politics