This is how it sounds on Monday in the Supreme Court, where lawyer René Offersen argues that Naser Khader should be convicted of libel.
The politician has written things about Sherin Khankan, which has been stigmatizing and subversive to her person and work, the lawyer believes. He represents Khankan.
– Naser Khader’s motive was to hit Khankan where he could and where it would do the most harm to her, says René Offersen.
René Offersen refers to a post on Facebook where Khader in the autumn of 2017 described Sherin Khankan as a woman with an Islamist past.
Earlier, the politician had sent an email to a number of rapporteurs in the Folketing, in which he expressed his concern that a grant of 680,000 kroner was on its way to an organization of which Sherin Khankan is director.
In addition to Naser Khader, the email was signed by the then foreign affairs rapporteurs Marcus Knuth and Martin Henriksen from the Liberal Party and the Danish People’s Party, respectively.
The organization that Sherin Khankan has founded and is director of is called the Exit Circle. It works to help victims of psychological violence.
In the email, Khader wrote that Sherin Khankan has defended the whiplash for infidelity.
This claim is also part of the injury case against Naser Khader.
– Sherin has considered it necessary to bring this defamation case because Khader in bad faith tried to eliminate Sherin’s legitimacy and undermine the role she played in public in 2017.
– Sherin could not tacitly let Naser Khader’s accusations of Islamism stand, as she would thereby accept that he and others beat her to the core with political views, which she throughout her work has helped to counteract, says René Offersen.
The lawyer refers to the fact that Islamism in the Danish Dictionary is described as an ideological direction that dictates that Islam must be the basis for the organization of society, and that sharia must have priority in relation to secular legislation.
But if one merely “superficially orients oneself about Sherin’s public work”, it is impossible to get the understanding that she believes that the whole society should be arranged according to Islam, her lawyer points out.
He points out that Sherin Khankan acknowledges Sufism, which is a branch of Islam that respects secularism – that is, the separation of religion and state.
In addition, she is in charge of divorce for Muslim women in the Mariam Mosque in Copenhagen, where she is an imam. And she dedicates Muslim women and non-Muslim men.
So-called interfaith marriages of couples where only the woman is Muslim are a rarity in Islam.
Divorce for Muslim women and the interfaith marriages would not be possible if Sherin Khankan was an Islamist and a supporter of sharia law, her lawyer argues.
Sherin Khankan is demanding $ 10,000 in damages.
When the case was heard in the Eastern High Court a year ago, Naser Khader was acquitted of insulting statements on Facebook.
The part of the case concerning the email to members of the Folketing was rejected with reference to his parliamentary immunity.
Source: The Nordic Page
