Danish Islamophobia Kills Muslim Teen

Uzun was kicked to death by three Danish teens. (IOL Photo)

"Deniz Ozgur Uzun was killed because of his dark, Middle Eastern skin," Jihad Abdelalim Alfara, the chairman of the Islamic Council in Denmark, told IslamOnline.net.

Uzun, a 17-year-old Turk attending a technical high school, was distributing newspapers in the Amager district of Copenhagen Wednesday when he was verbally harassed by three Danes, aged 15, 17 and 18.

"They tried to provoke him with racist slur," said Abdel-Hamid Hamdi, head of the Shura Council of the Islamic Council in Denmark.

"He ignored them and went his way before they stopped their car and started assaulting him."

A friend of Uzun, identified by the media as Mohammed, said the three attacked Uzun with a baseball bat and a hammer, leaving him unconscious.

The Muslim teen was put on life support at a hospital in Copenhagen with "severe brain damage" before he was pronounced dead the next day.

The three attackers were captured shortly after the attack and are still in custody.

"These three racist Danes were being sought even before attacking my son," Ali, the father, told local media.

"How could this happen?"

The Copenhagen Police Department confirmed that one the attackers had been captured with a gun six days before the attack and that the three are known to have criminal records.

Cartoon Effect

"Was it necessary to have someone killed in order to make sure that the racism is on the rise in Denmark following the (Prophet) cartoon crisis," asked Alfara. (IOL Photo)

Alfara, the Muslim community leader, believes the racist attack is directly linked to an Islamophobic atmosphere in the Scandinavian country fanned by the recent reprinting of the prophet cartoon.

"Was it necessary to have someone killed for people to realize that racism is on the rise in Denmark following the cartoon crisis."

Denmark's main dailies reprinted on Wednesday, February 13, a drawing of a man described as the prophet with a ticking bomb in his turban.

The move has reignited a controversy that first surfaced in 2005 after the mass-circulation Jyllands-Posten commissioned and printed 12 cartoons of the prophet, sending thousands of protesting Muslims into the streets across the world.

For some Muslims the incident unmasked double-standards in dealing with the country's nearly 200,000-strong minority.

"Where are those politicians who always jump on the bandwagon whenever Arabs or Muslims are involved in any similar incident," asked Hamdi.

"Why have not we heard from Justice Minister Lene Espersen who champions more restrictions on Muslims, imams and minority leaders?

"Where is the leader of the right-wing Danish People's Party Pia Kjaersgaard to explain why three blonde-haired Danish teens committed this racist crime?"