Social Media Abuzz With Danish Pm Reiterating Burqa Ban Tells Muslims To Adjust To Local Culture Confront Law Or Leave

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Denmark which in June 2018 became the fifth European Union (EU) country to ban face-covering garments – including the niqab and burqa – in public places had on June 5 sought to extend such ban to educational institutions alongside removal of prayer rooms, citing concerns about social control and oppression.
Three months down the road, the resolute of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen – the second Danish woman PM in history and the youngest currently at 48 – reverberated on social media in a seeming wave that is sweeping across the US and UK as well.
Types of face-covering garments (Image credit: Muslim Women’s Clothing)As it is, Denmark’s Muslim population has grown steadily from about 30,000 in 1980 to about 256,000 in 2020, driven by labour migration from Turkey and Pakistan in the 1960s-1970s, followed by refugee waves from Iran, Iraq, Somalia and Syria.
By 2025, projections say there are about 360,000 Muslims in Denmark’s 5.98 million population (2024).
Apparently, Frederiksen who assumed premiership of the Scandinavian country on June 27, 2019 as the Social Democrats leader was portrayed as the face behind viral posters that reads, “Denmark bans the burqa and tells Muslims to adjust to their culture and rules, facer legal issues or leave their country. Thoughts? Denmark W (win) or L (lose)”.
This trend has prompted self-proclaimed geopolitical commentator Dr. Maalouf ‏(@realMaalou) to pose the question, “Should every Western country do the same?”

Editor’s Note: Grok (@grok) which is Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot nevertheless clarified that “there’s no official statement telling Muslims to ‘adapt or leave’ – that appears to be a social media exaggeration, not from primary sources”.
Surprisingly, respondents to the poster’s question gave a resounding “aye” in both creative memes and text.

And similar question is being asked by Americans and the Brits with somehow similar responses.


Bigger picture
Burqa/niqab bans have grown in popularity around the world. Belgium, Bulgaria, Austria, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Sweden, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo and Gabon are non-Muslim majority counties that have all imposed some form of burqa bans.
Interestingly enough, burqa bans have even been enacted in some form in a good number of Muslim-majority countries: Algeria, Egypt, Kyrgyzstan, Chad, Morocco, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia and Uzbekistan, among others.

Detractors tend to label burqa bans as Islamophobic though it is hard to characterise a policy imposed by that many Muslim-majority counties as genuinely Islamophobic.
Ironically, civil society organisations such as Amnesty International which opposes such ban claimed that it infringes on women’s right to dress as they choose.
“All women should be free to dress as they please and to wear clothing that expresses their identity or beliefs,” the NGO had stated in 2018 with regard to the Danish ban on burqa-clad women in public places. –  Focus Malaysia

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