Newly released crime figures in Denmark have revealed that foreigners are drastically over-represented in rape convictions, with migrants comprising about a quarter of those found guilty of the crime last year.
“The figures clearly show that we have a problem with an ethnic slant when relatively many foreigners are convicted of rape, just as we have an obvious problem when more than half of the inmates in the country’s prisons and detention centers are immigrants, their descendants, or foreigners,” said Denmark’s Minister of Justice, Nick Hækkerrup, of the Social Democrats.
He said the figures are quite worrying, and claims to be taking the matter seriously. In comments given to BT Nyheder, Hækkerrup said, “I look at the numbers very seriously, because rape is a disgusting crime, which unfortunately is committed to an excessive extent.”
Both charges and convictions for rape in Denmark have skyrocketed in the past eight years, according to a statement from the Ministry of Justice. Since 2012, the small Scandinavian country — currently ruled the left-wing, anti-mass migration Social Democratic Party — has seen a steady rise in both charges and convictions of rape every year, Danish newspaper BT Nyheder reports.
In 2020, the country saw a total of 987 rape cases filed — more than double the number of charges filed in 2012, when 417 were reported. With regard to convictions, a total of 217 were handed down last year, versus 132 in 2012. Of the 217 individuals convicted of rape, nearly 25 percent (53) were foreign nationals who do not hold Danish citizenship. As of 2014, just 8 percent of the population of Denmark consists of migrants — a figure which excludes so-called second-generation migrants, or Danish-born descendants of immigrants to Denmark.
Most of last year’s convicts came from Syria, Turkey, or were stateless persons, most of which came from Palestine and the Middle East.
Unlike the vast majority of social democratic parties and leftists across the European Union, the social democratic justice minister did not shy away from conceding that sex crimes being committed by migrants are a “huge problem” for Danish society.
“It is first and foremost a huge problem for our community and our society that there are groups that make such a significant impact in terms of committing crime,” the justice minister added. “It challenges our cohesion, and therefore it is also the government’s policy that foreigners without Danish citizenship who are convicted of rape must be deported, to the extent there is a basis for it.”
Naser Khader, a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Conservative People’s Party, has also weighed in on the worrying phenomenon, even going so far as to suggest that the number of rapes committed by foreigners could be much higher than the official figures show.
“I want to ask the minister how many of those convicted with Danish nationality are actually second or third generation immigrants, so we can find out how many with immigrant backgrounds are actually charged or convicted of rape,” the conservative MP said.
Earlier this year, in January, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of the Social Democrats announced that her government would implement policies that would reduce the number of asylum seekers down to zero.
“That is our goal. We cannot make a promise of zero asylum seekers, but we can have it as a vision. We want a new asylum system, and we will do what we can to implement it,” Frederiksen said.
Since assuming high office in 2019, Denmark’s ruling center-left Social Democratic Party has honored its pledges to repatriate asylum seekers and to limit — or perhaps even stop all together — the number of new migrants coming into the country.
According to an earlier report from Remix News, the Social Democrats, in order to realize the ambitious goals they’ve set for themselves, have enacted a policy which gives asylum seekers whose residence permits have been rescinded the following two choices: 1) voluntarily repatriate themselves and receive a €30,000 incentive, or 2) live at a facility which houses asylum seekers.
Denmark is the first member state of the European Union to revoke the residency permits of Syrian asylum seekers whose homes have been deemed safe to return to. The ruling center-right party’s policies toward immigration are nearly diametrically opposed to those pushed by all of its northwestern European neighbors.
