State of the Art. Work Stream 3 – the Danish Report: Militants from the Other Side. Anti-bodies to hate-speech and behavior in Denmark

The purpose of the State Of the Art (SOA) is to gain knowledge about the Danish Context of organisations, groups and movements in civil society countering hate speech, institutional racism and exclusionary practices and to identify gaps in national research on the issue that can be explored through field work, interviews and group discussions/dialogues, possibly to be debated at roundtable convening in the autumn of 2014.

The SOA gives an overview of the role of the state, institutions, the political parties and social movements in combating racism, discrimination hate-speech and exclusionary behaviours. It will first give a brief overview of the historical context in Denmark before WWII and after Denmark joined the EU in 1972, focusing on the different referendum and on the implications of the four Danish opt-outs to the Maastricht Treaty in 1994. Then it will discuss the role of the State and of the formal institutional organisations featuring what we define the ‘anti-bodies’, which combat racism, discrimination, hate-speech and exclusionary behaviours. The focus is on the implementation of UN, EU and CoE regulations and policies, foundation of legislation related to gender and minority groups (ethnicities, religious minority groups) as well as to decision makers (parties etc.).