Saturday 8 June 2024

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen Assaulted in Copenhagen

 

Denmark's Prime Minister is attacked in Copenhagen: Man arrested as Mette Frederiksen is 'beaten' in the capital

Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has been assaulted by a man in central Copenhagen earlier today.

Police said on social media platform X they had arrested a man and were investigating the incident but declined to give further detail. 

Her office said in a statement: 'Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was beaten on Friday evening at the Kultorvet public square, a pedestrianized area, in Copenhagen by a man who was subsequently arrested. The Prime Minister is shocked by the incident.' She is suffering from whiplash.

A local, Soren Kjergaard, who works as a barista on the square, saw the prime minister being escorted away by security following the assault. 

Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen who has been assaulted by a man in central Copenhagen earlier today

Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen who was assaulted by a man in central Copenhagen

Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen speaks to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a Nordic summit, in Stockholm, on Friday, May 31, 2024

Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen speaks to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a Nordic summit, in Stockholm, on Friday, May 31, 2024

The assault comes two days before Danes head to the polls in the EU election and just three weeks after Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico was seriously injured in an assassination attempt.

Mr Fico, 59, was shot in the abdomen as he greeted supporters last month outside a cultural centre in the town of Handlova, nearly 85 miles north-east of the capital Bratislava.

Video footage showed the Slovak premier approach people gathered at barricades and reach out to shake hands as a man stepped forward, extended his arm and fired five rounds before being tackled and arrested.

He later underwent two hours of surgery to remove dead tissue from his gunshot wounds. 

[snippets from other news articles follow -AA]

An eyewitness Søren Kjærgaard who was working at Kulbar on Friday, said he saw the PM sit down with a friend before her security personnel rushed to ‘get her up'.

The assault took place on the public square in the centre of the city, where a man walked up to her and hit her.

Two witnesses, Marie Adrian and Anna Ravn, told local newspaper BT that they had seen the attack.


"A man came by in the opposite direction and gave her a hard shove on the shoulder, causing her to fall to the side," the two women told the newspaper.


They said that while it was a "strong push" the prime minister did not hit the ground.

She then sat down at a café, they added.


The assailant, attempted to flee but was quickly apprehended. Another witness observed the man lying on the ground with a security service member's knee on his back, appearing confused and slightly dazed.

The manager of a bar in the square told the Reuters news agency he saw Frederiksen walk away after the incident, escorted by security officers.

"Well, I saw the prime minister sitting with a friend at this table and just I think was one minute, two minutes afterwards, four PET (Danish national security and intelligence service) guys showed up, talked about an arrest has been made. And then she was escorted by the four PETs to some place around in the middle of the square and then escorted just a way around the corner," Soren Kjaergaard said.


Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen
German Social Democrat European Parliament Member Matthias Ecke was beaten by a teenager while campaigning in Dresden, Germany, requiring surgery.

German police on Tuesday reported an assailant stabbed Heinrich Koch, an Alternative for Germany candidate, with a box cutter in the southwest German city of Mannheim.

Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen
Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen gives her advanced vote for the European Parliament elections at the main library in Aalborg, Jutland, Denmark, Saturday June 1, 2024. Pic: AP
Image:Mette Frederiksen
Yemenis participate in a protest denouncing the burning of Islam's holy book, the Quran, in Sweden and Denmark, on July 24, 2023 in Sana'a, Yemen

Yemenis participate in a protest denouncing the burning of the Quran, in  Denmark, on July 24, 2023 in Sana'a, Yemen

Yemenis participate in a protest denouncing the burning of Islam's holy book in Sweden and Denmark, on July 24, 2023 in Sana'a, Yemen

Yemenis participate in a protest denouncing the burning of Islam's holy book in Denmark, on July 24, 2023 in Sana'a, Yemen

Men hold firearms as people demonstrate against the desecration of the Koran in Denmark, in Sanaa, Yemen, yesterday

Men hold firearms as people demonstrate against the desecration of the Koran in Denmark, in Sanaa, Yemen

Yemenis participate in a protest denouncing the burning of Islam's holy book, the Koran, in Sweden and Denmark, on July 24, 2023 in Sana'a, Yemen

Yemenis participate in a protest denouncing the burning the Koran in Denmark

Protesters gathered in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, carrying Iraqi flags and images of influential Iraqi Shiite cleric and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr, on Saturday, July 22, following reports of the burning of a Koran to be carried out by a ultranationalist group in front of the Iraqi Embassy in Copenhagen on the following Monday, July 23

Protesters gathered in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, carrying Iraqi flags and images of influential Iraqi Shiite cleric and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr following reports of the burning of a Koran in front of the Iraqi Embassy in Copenhagen 

Men from the Danish group Danske Patrioter 'Danish Patriots' hold a banner with a message against Islam outside the Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in Copenhagen

Wandering around the streets of Norrebro, past shops called 'Hijab Queens' and 'Shisha King', it would be easy to forget you're in Denmark

Wandering around the streets of Norrebro, past shops called 'Hijab Queens' and 'Shisha King', it would be easy to forget you're in Denmark

The sweeping package of laws, which has received all-party support, allows large numbers of 'non-western' people to be evicted and moved elsewhere

'non-western' people

Historically, Sweden, with 14 per cent of its population foreign-born, has taken in far more immigrants of all kind than Denmark, where the corresponding figure is only 8 per cent

In Denmark 8 per cent of the population is foreign born

Eight out of 10 people in Mjolnerparken are deemed 'non-Western', with people from non-EU countries in the Balkans and Eastern Europe also falling into that category

Eight out of 10 people in Mjolnerparken are deemed 'non-Western'

The Masjid Al-Faruq mosque in the Copenhagen neighbourhood of Norrebro which media have linked to radical Islam.

The Masjid Al-Faruq mosque in the Copenhagen neighbourhood of Norrebro which has been linked to radical Islam.

Imam Mundhir Abdallah's sermon, from March 2017, called upon Muslims to wage a war against Jews

Imam Mundhir Abdallah called upon Muslims to wage a war against Jews 

International crisis: Shi'ite Muslims stomp on a painting of the Danish flag in Iraq in 2006

International crisis: Shi'ite Muslims stomp on a painting of the Danish flag


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