Denmark’s former Prime Minister and MEP Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (Soc.Dem.) says that Denmark has ignored human decency in entering a church where rejected Iraqi asylum-seekers had sought sanctuary.

“I am deeply shocked at the cynicism that seems to have grabbed Danish society,” Nyrup Rasmussen says in connection with the arrest of 19 rejected asylum-seekers from the Brorson Church in Copenhagen.

“The police raid a church containing mostly innocent people on the same day that the Iraqi prime minister has seriously questioned whether Iraq will accept these refugees. I am deeply shocked when I think of the United Nations reaction at our way of treating these people. We have crossed the line of what is humane and decent,” Rasmussen says.

Rasmussen declined to comment on whether Danish authorities have been very patient with the rejected Iraqi asylum-seekers, who have been ensconced in the Brorson’s Church in Copenhagen since May.

“We have previously shown that we are a humanitarian society. We can remember the Bosnian refugees (Ed: in the 1990s) Nyrup Rasmussen says.

Nyrup Rasmussen also declined to comment on whether the rejected Iraqis should be given asylum under a special law, as happened with Palestinians in 1992.

“I’m not going to discuss law. I can only say that there must be another way. Is this how we want our country to be,” asks Poul Nyrup Rasmussen.

Justice Minister
Justice Minister Brian Mikkelsen (Cons.) does not appear to agree.

“I think we would have preferred not to have to use force. But we happen to live in a democratic society which is built on people abiding by the country’s laws and rules – and there’s no special treatment just because you occupy a church,” Mikkelsen says.

Iraqis
Wednesday night’s events come a week before a visit to Denmark by an Iraqi delegation which is to investigate those Iraqis whose asylum request has been rejected.

The delegation is to try to establish and confirm the identities of those claiming to be Iraqis.

The church clearance also came concurrently with an Iraqi government statement that it would not receive rejected Iraqi asylum-seekers who did not want to return to Iraq and who were forcibly repatriated.

“ We have said that we will not receive a single one of them, if the person is forcibly repatriated against their will,” Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says on the official Iraqi government website.

Integration Minister Birthe Rønn Hornbech (Lib.) refers, however, in a written reponse to politiken.dk to an agreement between Denmark and Iraq.

“We have an agreement and I have faith in the fact that the Iraqi authorities will keep to their word,” Rønn Hornbech says.

No sanctuary
An expert in Ecclesiastical Law and History says that there is no legal reason why the authorities cannot enter a church.

“It is not a sanctuary. That is a concept that does not exist in Danish law,” says Per Ingesman of the Theological Faculty at Aarhus University.

“(A church) is a public place and here is nothing to prevent the police from having access. Churches have no protection under the law,” Ingesman adds.

The Iraqis who have been at the Brorson’s church since May were living there with the blessing of the pastor and parish council.