Pork made mandatory on menus to 'preserve food traditions' amid migrant influx
PORK has been made mandatory on the menus of day care centres and schools across a city in a bid to 'preserve food traditions' amid an influx of migrants to the area.
By ZOIE O'BRIEN
GETTY
Politicians have insisted the move is not an attack on Muslims but is a necessary step to ensure establishments continue to keep local culture.
Frank Noergaard, a member of the council in Randers, Denmark, that narrowly approved the decision earlier this week, says it was made to ensure that pork remains "a central part" of the country's diet.
The country is a major pork producer and it is the most popular meat, but it is forbidden to Muslims and Jews.
Most of the asylum-seekers who have arrived in the country in the past months are Muslim.
GETTYThe signal we want to send here is that if you're a Muslim and you plan to come to Randers, don't expect you can impose eating habits on others. Pork here is on an equal footing with other foodFrank Noergaard
Noergaard, a member of the anti-immigration, populist Danish People's Party that proposed the council motion, said on Thursday that it wasn't meant as a "harassment of Muslims," but added that he had received "several complaints about too many concessions" being made to Muslims in the small, predominantly Lutheran country.
He said: "The signal we want to send here is that if you're a Muslim and you plan to come to Randers, don't expect you can impose eating habits on others.
"Pork here is on an equal footing with other food."
He said that halal meat, vegetarian dishes and diets for diabetics would still be available.
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In 2013, then-Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt lashed out at some nurseries after they started serving halal-butchered meat instead of pork because Muslim children had refused to eat it.
Monday's vote in Randers, 210 kilometers (130 miles) northwest of Copenhagen, follows last week's government announcement to further tighten immigration by forcing asylum-seekers to hand over valuables to help cover their housing and food costs while their cases are being processed.
Amnesty International on Thursday urged Denmark's parliament to reject proposed changes to the country's laws on refugees, saying that they would "have a devastating impact on vulnerable people" and may violate international human rights laws.
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Led by the DF, the Danish parliament this week passed a resolution that will force the government to come up with a proposal by March to build state-backed "villages" to replace housing in cities and towns.
Some tent camps have already been set up for single male refugees to give families priority in cities.
Last year, some 20,000 people applied for asylum in the nation of 5.6 million.
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