Hizb ut-Tahrir has published a letter to Muslim gymnasium students ahead of the start of the school year next week. Immigration and Integration Minister Morten Bødskov calls the campaign deeply concerning, dividing and dangerous.
DR reports that the Islamic association released the letter on Friday under the heading “stand firm on your Islamic identity and carry it with pride.” The letter is addressed to Muslim students starting at Danish upper secondary schools next week. DR has read the text.
According to DR, the letter tells students they may meet a youth environment where behavior, norms and lifestyles that do not harmonize with Islam are presented as natural or desirable. It also warns of pressure to adapt to a culture of following one’s desires and what it describes as a boundless youth culture. In that culture, the letter states, noble Islamic values are portrayed as old-fashioned, limiting or foreign.
Bødskov, of the Social Democrats, told DR that the message is dividing and dangerous. He said Hizb ut-Tahrir is urging young people to remember their Islamic values, with the implication that they should stay away from Danish values. His call, he said, goes above all to the principals of the country’s youth education programs, who should take the campaign extremely seriously.
The letter also contains passages telling students not to give in to peer pressure, and to be open, engaged and active. It urges them to take part in lessons, excel academically, show the best grades and contribute positively to their surroundings. Asked by DR whether that could be a positive message, Bødskov said the organization is dangerous for young immigrants, given its past, and that Islamic values do not belong in the Danish education system.
Hizb ut-Tahrir declined a recorded interview with DR. In an email to the broadcaster, the association’s media representative Elias Lambaret said it is Bødskov and the Danish government that create division, through constant suspicion of Muslims and by problematizing Islam itself.
Gymnasium leaders respond
Maja Bødtcher-Hansen, principal at Frederiksberg Gymnasium and chair of Danske Gymnasier, struck a calmer tone in her remarks to DR. She said students must of course be allowed to be believers and have a religion. She finds it unfortunate, however, that they are told in the imperative what to do at gymnasium, which she described as a place for forming one’s own views.
Bødtcher-Hansen said her experience is that the large majority of young Muslims take part happily in the school community, like everyone else. She added that schools must be alert and react to negative social control, naming examples such as others deciding whether a student may go to parties, or who the student dates or talks to.
The letter was issued ahead of the start of studies next week, according to DR’s reporting.
