Kurds in Denmark observe ISIS impact on country’s life

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Denmark has been on edge since February’s terror attacks in Copenhagen, in which a Danish-born Palestinian swore allegiance to ISIS just before killing two people, Kurds living here observe.

"The slightest suspicion of terror leads people to believe that we (Muslims) are terrorists," said Zagros Banayi, an Iranian-Kurd who is an engineer in Copenhagen. Speaking to Rudaw, he complained that constant media coverage of ISIS has created a public hysteria.

Last Valentine’s Day a gunman who was the son of Palestinian refugees in Denmark declared war on the country that had given him a home.

Omar el-Hussein, a 22-year-old with a criminal record and newly-released from jail, swore allegiance to ISIS before killing a person at a public debate on freedom of expression.  

Present was Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist who had been marked for death by Islamists for his cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in 2007. He escaped unhurt, but the gunman shot dead another man.

As all of Denmark held its breath, police launched a manhunt for the killer. After midnight on the same day, he struck again when he shot dead a volunteer guard outside a synagogue, before being gunned down himself by police.

Kurds – who number some 30,000 in Denmark – turned out with giant Kurdish flags at a Copenhagen memorial to condemn the shootings and honor the two dead.

 

At Friday prayers, mosque preachers in Denmark condemned the acts, emphasizing that they do not represent Islam.

That attack fell on a nation where ISIS hysteria had been at its height for months.

The Danish public mood was perhaps best exposed by an incident in August, two months after ISIS burst into the news with stunning territorial gains in Iraq and just after the extremists turned their guns on the Kurdistan Region.

In Copenhagen, Alisiv Ceran triggered a manhunt after he was spotted muttering something under his breath, reading a book on 9/11 and acting suspiciously on a train.  Police were notified after he hastily exited the train. But when he was found and questioned, authorities said he was just a nervous student on his way to an exam.

"Most people do not meet Muslims daily and get their primary knowledge about them from TV," explained Hans Jensen, an ethnic Dane who works in IT.  "If ordinary Muslims show their condemnation in public, people can see that ISIS does not represent them," he said.

Some Kurds in Denmark say they that, because of acts committed by ISIS, they sometimes feel obliged to change people's perception of their religion.

Randi Saidian, who works as a beautician, accused the Danish media of having a tendency to depict Islam in a negative way.

"Islam doesn’t kill, rape or commit terror. ISIS is doing these things and therefore they are not Muslims, according to me," said Saidian, an Iranian Kurd who came to Denmark in 1993.

"But because the media constantly talk about Islam in connection with ISIS, I feel a greater need to tell ordinary Danes what the real Islam is," she said.

”ISIS and terror have damaged the Muslims' reputation in Denmark,” said Saidian, who fears that in next September’s parliamentary elections right-wing Danish parties that are highly critical of Islam will attract greater votes.

Police and intelligence agencies say that an estimated 100 Danish citizens are fighting alongside ISIS and other extremist groups. That means Denmark has produced more ISIS recruits per head than any other Western European country, except Belgium.

Hana Faridoon an Iraqi Kurd who came to Denmark in 1987, believes that, while ISIS has had a negative impact on Danish perceptions of Islam, it has contributed positively to how Danes and the world see the Kurds.

Following ISIS attacks on Shingal in Iraq and Kobane in Syria, the Kurdish resistance to those assaults made media headlines around the world. Kurdish forces are seen as a bulwark to ISIS’ ambitions of taking its war to the world.

"In that way you can say that ISIS has helped to raise awareness of our people and our historical resistance against fascism and oppression," said Faridoon. "Finally, people have started to recognize us.”