Denmark

Secret racist network exposed

www.socialistworld.net, 11/08/2011
website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI

Wanted: ‘cleansing’ of immigrants and showdown with ‘traitors’

Per-Åke Westerlund, Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (CWI Sweden)

Only two and a half weeks after the horrible terror massacre in Norway, a secret network of racists has been exposed in Denmark. With about 100 members, ‘ORG’ has existed for 20 years, preparing for a ‘showdown’ with immigrants and ‘traitors’. Leading members of the Danish People’s Party and an infamous police officer are among its members.

The news was published on 10 August by Politiken, reporting that ORG was “started by a small group of men, several of whom have held leading positions in the Danish People’s Party, or been candidates for the party, while at the same time taking part in Ku Klux Klan-type events and exerting influence on extreme right-wing organisations.

Several ORG members have said they are willing to use violence against immigrants and have praised the Hells Angels support group AK81 for “beating provocative wogs”.

The Norwegian right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people on 22 July, was for many years a member of the racist and populist Fremskrittspartiet (FrP, Progress Party), holding positions locally and being a candidate in council elections. Photos have now been published of him partying with the Oslo chair of FrP.

The even more racist Dansk Folkeparti (DF, Danish People’s Party) is now implicated in the secret network with the aim of “cleaning” Denmark of immigrants and “traitors”. The leader of ORG, Jesper Nielsen, was the DF leader in Aarhus and another leader was a candidate for parliament. The network closely followed its “enemies” with an “extensive ‘traitor archive’, which is called “The Great Memory”, Politiken reported.

The Copenhagen leader of ORG was a police officer who was suspended from the force on political grounds in 2009, having used his position to monitor 8,000 left-wing political opponents. He also had guns and ammunition in his flat, alongside stickers saying “Real Danes shit on the Koran”. But, as in the case with the Murdoch scandal in Britain, the information gained about ORG in the investigation against this police officer in 2009 was not used further or made public.

The secret organisation, ORG, used several fronts, such as a right-wing youth organisation, a website and Den Danske Forening (The Danish Association). Even an organisation for ‘press freedom’, i.e. defending racism in the media, is linked to ORG. Most members are in public positions, at the same time taking part in racist rituals, burning crosses, and discussing ethnic cleansing.

The news about ORG shows again how far some of the right-wing extremists are prepared to go. At the same time, some of their policies are in line with populist and racist parties in parliaments around Europe. In Denmark, the role of DF as a support party of the conservative government has made Denmark’s migration policies some of the worst in Europe. For example, a Danish citizen has to be 24-years old to marry a foreigner (DF now demands this is raised to 27 years).

The Danish author Carsten Jensen, in an interview with a Norwegian paper, remarked, “As a Dane, I hear Breivik from the platform of parliament every day,” referring to the similar policies of the Danish People’s Party and the terrorist in Norway. Some of the mentors of Anders Behring Breivik, such as Alan Lake of the English Defence League and the blogger Fjordman, are also held high by the racist Sweden Democrats.

The increased spread of racism and Islamophobia in Nordic countries is a product of the weakening of the labour movement and the destruction of the welfare state. Leading politicians have encouraged this trend, seeking to divide and rule. Norway, Denmark and Sweden all have soldiers in Afghanistan and basically criminalise asylum seekers. The danger posed by the terror in Norway and the network in Denmark has to be met by trade unions, left organisations and activists to form movements for struggle against neo-liberalism and racism. New workers’ parties with socialist policies are needed.

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