October 30, 2020
Denmark has summoned the Iranian ambassador to tell her the embassy is forbidden to pressure Iranian women living in Denmark to accept divorce terms drawn up by local mullahs.
The summons follows recent reports in Danish media about Muslim women being forced to accept divorce deals made by mullahs in Denmark. A contract made by one mullah said that a woman, among other things, had to accept that, if she remarried, she would lose the custody of her children.
“I take the rumors extremely seriously that the Iranian Embassy, unsolicited, had contacted women living here to pressure them to have their Danish divorce papers religiously validated,” said Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod.
Kofod said October 7 that the Scandinavian country will “in no way accept if an embassy is involved in cases that are contrary to Danish law — and contrary to our basic democratic values in Denmark.”
“The kind of religious control that we have heard about in the media does not belong in Denmark,” he said.
Denmark is one of only three countries to which to which the Islamic Republic has assigned a woman as ambassador. The others are Malaysia and Finland. The ambassador to Denmark is Afsaneh Nadipour.
