For the first time in Danish history, a citizen born in Denmark has had his citizenship revoked after being convicted of being a member of the Islamic State terror group.
Danish-born Muslim Enes Ciftci, 25, who is also a citizen of Turkey, was found guilty of supporting the terror group and sentenced to six years in prison and expulsion. The court found that Ciftci had expressed support for terrorist attacks committed by the group and had actively tried to raise funding for them, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation reports.
The case is the first time a Danish citizen born in the country has had their citizenship revoked. However, it is not the first time a foreign-born Islamic radical has been stripped of citizenship.
Last year, Muslim bookshop owner Said Mansour was the first criminal to be stripped of his Danish citizenship after being sentenced to four years in prison for supporting terrorist groups. Mansour, 56, came to Denmark from Morrocco as an adult in 1988.
In the case of Ciftci, the court justified taking away his citizenship saying that he had twice attempted to join Islamic State in 2013 and 2015.
He is also said to have raised 20,000 Danish krone (£1,400) for the terror group and praised the Copenhagen terror attacker Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein.
Hussein was responsible for attacking both a presentation put on by Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, as well as shooting up a synagogue in the city, killing two and injuring several others in 2015.
While Denmark has stripped the citizenship of several Islamic state radicals, other European countries have been far more hesitant to do the same to returning fighters and terror supporters.
Netherlands To Strip Citizenship From Islamic State Jihadis https://t.co/Mir7GnmvvN pic.twitter.com/4Y4tDBbreK
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 26, 2016
In the UK, laws exist to revoke citizenship but have only been applied in a select number of cases like that of radical Islamist blogger Akif Razaq earlier this year. Razaq was the first person since 2015 to have his citizenship taken away after being deemed a threat to UK security.
In Sweden, the government has totally rejected the idea of stripping the citizenship of Islamic radicals with Justice Minister Morgan Johansson saying the Swedish government refused to make anyone “stateless”.
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