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Freedom of religion is part of the law in Denmark, and as of 2005, nineteen different Muslim religious communities had status as religious societies, which gives them certain tax benefits. However, unlike most Western countries, Denmark lacks separation of church and state, resulting in economic and cultural privileges for ''Folkekirken'' not shared by Muslim or other minority communities. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51549.htm BREAKDOWN The majority of the Muslims living in Denmark are first-generation Danes from Muslim-majority Countries . During the 1970 s, many Muslims emigrated from Turkey , Pakistan , Morocco , or Yugoslavia , while during the following two decades, a significant portion emigrated from Palestine , Iran , Iraq , and Somalia . Parts of the Qur'an (and other religious texts like the Bible) are required reading in a religion class in grammar school at the obligatory C level. http://us.uvm.dk/gymnasie//vejl/religion_c_stx/ In 1967 the Nusrat Djahan Mosque the first Mosque in Scandinavia , was built in Hvidovre , a suburb of Copenhagen . It is used by Ahmadi believers, but is not regarded as Muslim by many Shia - and Sunni Muslims, who see the movement as heretical. Other mosques exist but are not built for the explicit purpose. It is not forbidden to build mosques or any other religious buildings in Denmark but there are very strict zoning laws. One piece of land has been reserved for a grand mosque near Copenhagen , but financing is not settled. It could easily be financed e.g. with Saudi money, but then it would become an Arab mosque, and most Muslims in Denmark are not Arabs but Turks, Kurds, and Bosnians. There are seven Muslim cemeteries in Denmark. They are all placed in connection with existing Danish graveyards. This seems to be a problem, as many Muslims don’t want to be buried so close to atheists and Christians, and therefore prefer to be flown to their home countries to be buried there. A separate Muslim cemetery is due to open in Brøndby near Copenhagen in 2006. CONFLICT As a country with a highly homogenous indigenous population and without a history of immigration until the last decades of the 20th century, Denmark, like several countries in Western Europe, is dealing for the first time with the presence of a substantial and visible minority. As first and second generation immigrants, many drawn from the ranks of refugees, muslims in Denmark have not yet achieved the economic and political power proportional to their population; for example, they remain over-represented among prison populations and the unemployed, and under-represented in higher education, and among permanent residents holding citizenship and the right to vote. Some ethnic Danes feel threatened by aspects of muslim culture, setting the stage for conflict. Partly as a reaction to this perceived threat, recent years have seen the rise of a political party with nationalistic and anti-immigration policies, often with an anti-muslim bent: "(Conservative)http://www.konservative.dk/index.php?module=forside coalition has instituted policies designed to stem the flow of immigrants to Denmark, and to increase the barriers for first and second generation children of immigrants to obtain permanent residency and citizenshiphttp://www.udlst.dk/english/default.htm, while also making some efforts to improve the access of the immigrants to labour markets, and promote competancy in the Danish language. Much media attention has been focussed on arranged marriage, practised by some Danish Muslims, and laws are in place to try to limit such marriages. The rights of Muslim women in Denmark to wear or not to wear various traditional head covering, e.g. in the workplace, has also been the subject of debate. The practice of Female Circumcision , or " Kvindelig Omskæring ", which is illegal in Denmark, has been associated with certain Danish Muslims of Somali origin, and aroused tensions in 2002http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvindelig_omsk%C3%A6ring. Another ongoing discussion centres around language: should universal public education also fund teaching in Arabic for Muslims? How far should the government go in coaxing or coercing the muslim minority to adopt the Danish langugage of the majority, when Danish itself is a minority language in Europe with a reputation for being among the most difficult to learn? A Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten printed 12 Caricatures of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in September of 2005. Those cartoons sparked a controversy, so far resulting in scores of deaths, the closure of several Danish embassies, a boycott of Danish goods, and protests, all taking place throughout the Muslim world. The violent protests abroad have caused rising support of the anti-immigration Danish People's Party and, by some accounts, a rise in Islamophobia in Denmark. However, Muslims in Denmark conducted only a few small, peaceful protests. ORGANIZATIONS
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