Danish government withholds documents re Muhammad cartoons

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Wednesday March 29, 2006 00:48 by Coilín ÓhAiseadha Máigh Nuad, Co. Cill Dara

Muslim organisations warned the government to intervene

The Liberal-Conservative Danish government refuses to give the Socialist People’s Party access to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ registers of correspondence concerning the controversial cartoons of the Prophet, which provoked demonstrations and attacks on Danish embassies in the Middle East in January.

The chairman of the Socialist People’s Party, Villy Søvndal, accuses the government of "deliberately trying to keep secret things they don’t want people to know about” - particularly further documentation for the fact that Muslim organisations and ambassadors warned the government in advance that things could turn nasty if it did not engage in diplomatic initiatives to distance itself from the cartoons.

The government will now have to explain its stance in the Foreign Policy Committee.

Please read my translation of a recent article from the website of the Danish daily paper, Politiken.

27 March 2006 at 22:20

SF refused access to papers about Muhammad case

The Danish government will not give the Socialist People’s Party access to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ registers of correspondence in the case regarding the cartoons of the Prophet.

By Matias Seidelin

The government is now refusing to hand over a series of registers of correspondence that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has kept in the case about Jyllands-Posten’s Muhammad cartoons. This is the outcome of a reply from Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller (Conservative) to the chairman of the Socialist People’s Party, Villy Søvndal.

The registers cannot be given to the Danish parliament because a majority in the parliament does not wish to have an independent investigation of the case:

Søvndal outraged
“The request to see the registers of correspondence in the case must be understood as an attempt to instigate such an investigation after all, and can therefore not be accommodated,” writes the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who at the same time states that the government has no obligation at all to release the information.

The chairman of the Socialist People’s Party, Villy Søvndal, is outraged at the refusal:

“If the parliament can’t even get some innocent registers of correspondence, of course it’s because the government is deliberately trying to keep secret things they don’t want people to know about,” he thinks.

A united opposition – except the Danish People’s Party – has criticised the government for having withheld key documents in the case. Including several documents where major Muslim organisations warned the government that the Prophet case could escalate if it did not intervene.

At the same time, they have asked the government to release a series of key documents in the Prophet case to the parliament’s Foreign Policy Committee.

Confidential conversations
But for these they can also expect a long wait. So says the Danish People’s Party’s member of the presidium of the parliament, Poul Nødgaard. [The presidium is a group consisting of the Speaker and four vice-speakers.]

Together with the rest of the members of the presidium, he is processing a complaint from the Red-Green Alliance, which does not think the committee has been given sufficient information in the case:

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs writes in a reply to the Red-Green Alliance’s complaint that the government has given what it judges it shall according to the constitution. And so there is no more to say about that matter,” thinks Poul Nødgaard.

Red-Green Alliance: “It stinks"
The chairman for the Foreign Policy Committee, Jens Hald Madsen (Liberal), agrees:

“The documents include confidential conversations with foreign government leaders and intelligence agencies. And her it must be understood that respect for foreign powers comes into play, and this has been mentioned to the opposition,” he says.

To this, the Red-Green Alliance’s acting foreign policy spokesperson Rune Lund says:

“You know, we can’t fulfil our role in supervising the government when it won’t give us information. It stinks.”

The government is to explain itself in the Foreign Policy Committee.

*****

Cartoons of Muhammad
· 30 September 2005 Danish morning paper Jyllands-Posten publishes 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
· 12 October 11 ambassadors from Muslim countries ask for a meeting with Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Liberal), who refuses.
· 25 October the Egyptian foreign ministry exhorts the government to distance itself from the cartoons.
· In December, a delegation of Danish Muslims travels to the Middle East and calls for international condemnation.
· In January and February, the case leads to boycott of Danish goods, including demonstrations and attacks on Danish embassies.

Translated from the original article here:
http://politiken.dk/VisArtikel.iasp?PageID=445648