Talk:Anders Fogh Rasmussen

How serious are the rumours about his homosexuality? Is it just a stupid thing that people say, or are they real rumours? He's obviously in favour of gay marriage, so maybe people extrapolate liberally. I can't find an overwhelming number of mentions of these rumours on the internet in either english or danish, and the ones that do show up are somewhat dubious. Should we be including this sort of "rumour" in an encyclopedia? In any case, I think it would be wise to include a link of some sort to proof, since it does not appear to be widespread knowledge.

Peregrine981 00:49, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I am a Dane, and I have actually avoided hearing any of the rumours. You would need to convince me that he really is gay with a respected reference before I would agree to mention it here. Since the rumour isn't very wide-spread, and maybe not true, we shouldn't mention it as long as it is just a rumour. Thue | talk 17:27, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

He is married to a woman, right? The rumours are nothing but that: rumours. They should not be included. 83.93.190.29

I am also Dane. And if you read newspaper, which I do. You would have had the option to have read serval of articels about Fogh being gay. Especially in Ekstra Bladet.

About Anders Fogh Rasmussen's alleged homosexuality

Being a norwegian citizen living in Denmark I too have on several occasions stumbled across the rumours of Anders Fogh Rasmussen's sexual preferences. They have never been substantiated nor have they found their way into main stream media. More importantly, though, is that there is no tradition in Denmark for prying into politicians' personal lives. Being a proportional parliamentary democracy, danish politics still evolves around parties rather than individuals. Denmark is also a very liberal society as far as sexuality is concerned. --192.38.5.215 20:35, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)Roger Christensen

That's absurd. Anders Fogh Rasmussen have been married with Anne-Mette Rasmussen for a long time and have 3 children. Unless someting substantial turns up this rumour should be ignored and certanly not mentioned in the encyclopedia.

What about his time as tax minister?

When he was tax minister in 1992 where there aint something about that he left the post becouse of some accusations that he made tax "fraud"? --80.197.219.8 16:54, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think i owns all danish persons 20 kr... Because of his actions.

His term as minister of taxation was marked by many attempts to cut staff, and this turned the (remaining) bureaucrats quite hostile towards him. The downsizing also produced a lot of confusion in the department. Later, a number of accounting errors in the department were discovered, and two rumours about the errors persisted: 1) that they had been made deliberately by the bureaucrats, hoping that "good figures" would make the angry boss stop his cuts, and 2) that the mistakes had in fact been made accidentally, but no-body dared tell the boss they existed fearing for their own jobs. Consequently, the errors were never corrected. When the story broke, Anders Fogh Rasmussen assumed full responsibility and quickly resigned his office. An official inquiry found that he had not violated any law. --Valentinian 22:20, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Nazi connections

I removed the following text added earlier today, http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/button_headline.png Level 2 headlineas no source was cited.

Allthough Anders Fogh Rasmussen's father collaborated extensively with Nazi Germany during WW2, and Anders Fogh himself was part of a Neo-Nazi youth organisation in his late teens, he later switched allegiance to Venstre.

Thue | talk 08:28, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Utter bull****. --Valentinian 15:49, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Thats interesting. Do you have sources on that? --194.255.124.250 09:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Edit by User:Asbent

User:Asbent appears to like adding material about what he claims is a Muslim outrage against Anders Fogh Rasmussen. I have reverted this edit twice today (13 December 2005) and I have no intention of breaking the WP:3RR but I fail to see what possible relevance that edit has to this page.

The Muslim outrage has to do with a Danish newspaper - Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten - printing 12 caricatures of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Diplomats from Egypt and a number of other counties made an official protest and demanded Anders Fogh Rasmussen bring Jyllands-Posten under his control. AFR replied that the government of Denmark, like all other Danish governments since God knows when, believes in Freedom of the Press, and that - under the Danish Constitution - he had no powers to intervene in this dispute. If anyone felt offended, he urged them to use the legal system to solve the dispute. The relevant section of the Danish criminal code is §266B (the clause against racism). Had AFR said anything else, he'd have violated the Constitution's §77. This states that censorship may never again be introduced but that publishers are legally responsible for what they print. Danish law gives him absolutely no authority to intervene in a newspaper's editing.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen has not supported Jyllands-Postens action at all. In fact, he's said that he thought printing the caricatures was a rather bad idea. In my mind, the Prime Minister's, and Jyllands-Posten's - based on a number of articles I've read in that paper - the dispute only involves Jyllands-Posten, not the Danish goverment or anybody else. I'd really like to see a very good reason to include User:Asbent's edit in this page. --Valentinian 22:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Please stop vandalising this article, Valentinian. The reason to keep this addition in the article is very simple: Mr. Rasmussen's comments to not step in and suppress freedom of press caused an international uproar amongst muslims and thus, in my opinion, it is a very important part of his premiership. I will once again edit this into the article. Should you want to reword it, be my guest. However, do not delete it again. (http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2005-11/18/article02.shtml, The ambassadors of 11 Muslim countries called on Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the prime minister, to take "necessary steps" against the "defamation of Islam".))--Absent 13:52, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

User:Valentinian appears to be from Denmark, so I have to weigh his opinion on Danish law a little more highly than Absent's. Also, the information does not belong in an encyclopaedia article about Rasmussen, since we cannot afford to print a paragraph or two on every comment he ever made. Also note that there is a difference "ambassadors requested an apology", and your report of "all muslim countries imposed sanctions on Denmark". Can you reconcile these? Sherurcij ^{(talk) (bounties)} 14:26, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

You can edit the article then as you wish, I however think this section is very important in regards to Mr. Rasmussens premiership.--Absent 14:30, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Asbent, You are entitled to you own opinion, but 1) Wikipedia is a neutral encyclopedia, 2) this "uproar" started more than two weeks before AFR stated that he'd not violate the Constitution. You have not provided any source of documentation for Muslim nations imposing sanctions upon Denmark or upon AFR personally. That's why any such references belong in the article about Jyllands-Posten. I've followed that case, and I read the paper daily. And no, I'm not part of any conspiracy or whatever. --Valentinian 14:34, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

You liar, you were involved in the whole 9/11 debacle!!!!!!!! (I kid, of course) Sherurcij ^{(talk) (bounties)} 14:42, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's put it this way; nobody outside of Denmark cares about his tax reform: on the other hand, very many people outside Denmark are interested in the fact that there are still non-dhimmi leaders in this world who are willing to take a stand for Democracy instead of being bullied and subsequently subdued by muslims to manipulate free speech so as to not "offend" their mighty religion.--Nosharia 23:16, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I love your username Sherurcij ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I love how I totally owned you in the beslan article--Nosharia 14:49, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

You what now? looks at the article, confused What the hell? You haven't even edited it...stop dreaming about being a WP troll at night. Also, don't fuck with articles, especially not ones on my watchlist. Cheers. Sherurcij ^{(talk) (bounties)} 20:43, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

New edit about cartoon controversy

So what's the consensus, we're mentioning it, not mentioning it? Typically our articles such as George W. Bush, Paul Martin and such do not note what seems to be a relatively minor controversy, but perhaps this is a huge issue in Denmark? Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 00:01, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I suppose a brief mention is in order. It's not often that Denmark appears prominently in international news or sparks diplomatic furor, even over so petty a controversy. User:NTK 14:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Denmark not appear prominently in the news over a petty matter? Clearly you haven't heard of Hans Island! ;) grins Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)}

I suppose it is appropriate with a *brief* paragraph now. This issue has now been blown out of all proportion. A lot of Arabs now demand that 1) the PM apologizes towards the Muslim world [for something he has had nothing to do with] and 2) that he outlaws Jyllands-Posten altogether and imposes censureship [which would be the worst violation of the Danish constitution ever!] Today Jyllands-Posten's buildings in both Århus and Copenhagen had to be evacuated following a bomb threat, and the evening news shows footage of Palestinians burning Danish flags and images of the Prime Minister. --Valentinian 20:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Municipal reform

• "Under the proposal the number of counties (amter) would be reduced to five from thirteen". -- I am pretty certain that's not right. Anyone know what it should say? Jdcooper 18:16, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The thirteen counties are being replaced by five new "regions". See Regions of Denmark. --Valentinian 00:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

To be a part of Global Provocation

I suppose every Law system doesn't accept slander, insult and satire incorrectly publication about a person. What about a Prophet which is respected over than 1,5 billion people all over the world. Unfortunately Denmark ,whether willingly or not,hosted this unconscience event. I describe these cartoons as a global provacation it's a silly explanation to evaluate this publication as a freedom of press. Why? What do they know about ur Prophet? How many message do they hear from him? Simply nothing. How many Europen knows this clue belongs to him. "A man who killed an innocent person is supposed to be killer of all humanity." As an example Islamic thought doesn't permit to sink a ship which has 99 savage banditsand only one innocent for the sake of him or her. In this century, unfortunately because of some occupations, uneducation and any other reasons some(very few) Muslims accept violance as describe theirselves. But most of Muslims reject this. On the view of our Prophet, current Muslim leaeders say "A Muslim must not be a terrorist or A terrorist must not be supposed as a Muslim. I invite Danish people to learn more about Prophet Muhammed. I invite Danish PM to consult to some leaders who are known as conscience as Clinton, Annan; about returning from his great fault. I invite Jillyan Posten to excuse clearly and rejecting to be a part of Global Provocation. ~

The above is an unsigned comment. To the uploader: You may assume what you want, but Danish law is crystal clear: Everyone is entitled to print almost whatever they want. The restriction is that people may not e.g. print accusations that everyone from (insert country name here) are terrorists or criminals or something like that, racism is not allowed. It is not allowed either to falsely accuse somebody of having committed crimes or something like that. But these are pretty much the only restricions. Newspapers are not regulated or controlled by the government, the police, the army or anybody else in power. The businessmen that own them, decide what they print. This is called "freedom of the press", and no Danish politician is prepared to give that up. It is also allowed to make jokes and caricatures about Christians, Jesus, Jews, Danes, Swedes, etc, and this is frequently done and accepted by the public. Images of Jesus much much worse than the ones of Muhammad have also been printed, and this is in a Christian country. People accept this. It is not the first time a cartoon of Muhammad has been printed either. If you want to read the relevant paragraphs, the articles is the Danish Constitution of 1953, §77 and the Danish Criminal Code § 140 and §266 B. On a more general note: Remarks like these belong to the page on the Muhammad cartoon controversy, not here. --Valentinian 00:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

And I invite Moslems and Arab Leaders to learn something about European law. And I invite you all to tell us how and why Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who doesn't have any ties with the newspaper, who doesn't have it in his power to stop a newspaper (despite what Arab leaders say), and who has all along regretted the offence the cartoons have caused Moslems despite having nothing to do with it, should apologize! --Thf1977 09:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Muslims are not interested in the Danish constitution or the justifications for these nasty and unwarranted cartoons. We want an apology from the newspaper for insulting us like this in the worst possible manner. We also dont care how you people slander Christianity or each other. That is your nasty culture and you can continue it. We want an apology for insulting us like this.

If you are a Muslim you might be interested to know that this entire episode has only hurt one single group in Denmark: the immigrants from Muslim nations. The vast majority of them are peaceful and lawabiding citizens - in fact many of them were kicked out of the Middle East because they opposed religious fundamentalism there. But islamist terror has made some Danes begin to view these people with suspicion, which is not warranted. In Denmark, nobody controls what a newspaper prints - unlike in the Middle East. In a democracy, the government couldn't care less what newspapers print. The only thing the idiots burning the Danish embassy in Beirut accomplished was to decrease the chances of a lot of young Muslims in Denmark trying to get a job. After the attacks in Beirut, many Muslims in Denmark demonstrated *against* the idiots in Beirut. The Danish economy is extremely strong and probably the strongest in more than 30 years. In fact one of the strongest in Western Europe. And nobody cares about Arla's tiny exports to the Middle East. My mistake, one more effect has happened: Danes have become more willing to invest in alternative energy sources, so we'll be less affected by future increases in oil prizes. And don't have any illusions that we are afraid of an "oil embargo" or something similar. Denmark has plenty of oil fields of our own in the North Sea, far away from the Middle East. Valentinian ^(talk) 22:05, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Constitutional Charges against Danish Prime Minister

I would like to see an article on how the Danish Prime Minister is being charged as breaching the constitution of Denmark and Danish law by involving Denmark in the bloody war and occupation of Iraq. There also calls in Denmark and Europe to put him to trial as a war criminal. this could have important ramifications for other world leaders, including George W. Bush and Tony Blair of the U.K.

The above comment was made by IP: 69.196.139.250 at the time: 03:39, 13 February 2006

Actually, there have been no calls of the sort, and there is no discussion in Denmark about Fogh having breached the constitution. So the above is just plainly wrong... Also, I fail to see how anyone can view the Danish presense in Iraq as an occupation - they are there with the blessing of a democratically elected government... --Thf1977 07:57, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Please sign your comments, remarks, edits and additions with four(4)~ as per policy. If you are not logged in or have an account please still sign with four tildes, tis will tell the rest of the visitors when the comment was made.

Angelbo 23:37, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, there was the case of 12 citizens (later joined by the father of a KIA soldier) who sought to bring a case before the Danish high court, that given that the war was not sanctioned by the UN the parliment violated the Danish constitution in sending troops to Iraq (but not Afganistan), however, this is as close as you'll get. Also, the case was rejected on the basis of the individuals lacking a personal interest in the case (a requirement under most code law systems) Justpedersen 21:36, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The entire argument was rather thin as well, since the Danish Constitution does not refer to the United Nations at all, so "unconstitutional" - hmm, no. Valentinian ^(talk) 22:17, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is a need to touch on the finer points of international law, but generally speaking a country does not have to willing state that it acknowledges international treaties for them to be applied to its territory and actions, and in this specific case, the court wisely made no comment on the matter of whether or not Denmark was participating in a non-defensive and hence illegal war, but simply commented that the claimants had no individual interest and hence no case Justpedersen 15:14, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Cartoons, why?

Pardon me, but how on earth are som caricatures in Dagbladet Information relevant to an encyclopedia article on a prime minister? "Information" only has around 20000 readers and its stories and news coverage is rarely debated or recited in other Danish media. Surely, these cartoons are only relavant to the paper's core readers - I don't recall them mentioned elsewhere. There is a NPOV problem here!

(this unsigned comment was posted by 84.238.25.152).

Apparently somebody believed them to be relevant, but yes, they are not relevant at all. They've been completely ignored in Danish media, and they contain absolutely no new information. The one with Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Abu Laban might be relevant in itself, but not the other ones. --Valentinian ^(talk) 10:39, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, It seems like noone bothers to explain the very good reason for including some quite unnoticed cartoons in this article. I'll do some editing soon. Medico80 17:33, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Being a Dane myself and having never hear about them before, I found them a funny side story. I would include them on the basis that the size of the article expands Justpedersen 21:32, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, now they are deleted. Let's consider this topic closed - don't revert.

Personal votes

Rasmussen received the most "personal votes" of any politician in Denmark with 61,792.

But the article on Poul Nyrup Rasmussen says:

Rasmussen currently sits as an MEP after winning a record number of 407,966 votes for an individual (from Denmark) in the European Parliamentary elections in 2004.

Who's right? Or is it that AFR's record is for Folketing elections and PNR's for EU Parliament elections...? Tamino 12:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Anders Fogh Rasmussen holds the record regarding elections to Parliament (Folketing elections). Poul Nyrup Rasmussen holds the record for MEP elections. The latter figure will naturally be higher since MEP elections consider Denmark to be one unified constituency (5.4 mill. people, so around 4 mill. could vote for Poul Nyrup Rasmussen). In elections to parliament, each politician stands in his / her own constituency but people can vote for the candidate in the entire county. To complicate matters further, the Greater Copenhagen District is devided into three regions for this purpose. Anders Fogh Rasmussen stands in Glostrup constituency in Copenhagen County (around 618,000 inhabitants, and 380,000 voted in the 2005 parliamentary elections [1] .) Hope this clears it up. Valentinian ^(talk) 13:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Iraq War

This section needs some help. The second and third paragraphs contradict each other, and the last two paragraphs do not seem incredibly relevant. If someone who knows enough about Denmark to know which one is correct can fix it, I would be much obliged. Heavy Metal Cellist ^talk_contribs

I've tried to sort the matter out a bit. I hope it's better now. Valentinian ^(talk) 21:54, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Heavy Metal Cellist^talk_contribs

I believe I have cleared up the contradiction, by merging the contradictory statements and putting them into a proper time frame. --Mlindow 09:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the text was clearer before. Rasmussen's lack of interest in Iraq's presumed WMDs began before the debate about them seriously broke in the U.S. and U.K. Many Danish journalists wanted Rasmussen to confirm that he was simply following the American claim that Saddam had WMDs. AFAIK he always rejected this, simply stating that Saddam Hussein was a tyrant that needed to be removed. I find it somewhat improper to edit this page since I am a member of the same political party, but I am going to add a {{fact}} since a source is definitely needed here. And preferably one from when the debate took place, not material written several years later. But to the best of my information, the current version is incorrect. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 12:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Bilderberg

I think that it should be included that Anders Fogh Rasmussen participated in the secretive Bilderberg group in 2000 and 2003

http://www.bilderberg.org/2000.htm
http://www.mirrorberg.org/2000.htm
http://www.bilderberg.org/2003.htm
http://www.mirrorberg.org/2003.htm
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bilderberg_2003

My edit regarding his resignation in 1992

I've changed some factual errors in the recently-added post about AFR's resignation as minister of taxation. No court proceding ever took place. Had it taken place, it would have been "Rigsretten". What was carried out was a commission of inquiry that furthermore complained that the papertrail in the Ministry of Taxation was impossible to follow with misplaced files etc. very likely due to the massive and chaotic restructuring / cutbacks this department faced at the same time. Even this [2] "I hate the cabinet and they're all crooks"-website agrees that the dispute involved postponement of two payments respectively from 1988 to 1989 (DKK 16.5 million) and 1989 to 1990 (DKK 35 million). This might be bad accounting practice, but the amounts of cash are completely nil compared to the total size of the Danish public budget, this amount is completely ridiculous. I guess back then, one could have built one tiny school for this amount of cash, but that's about it. I've seen at least one municipality with much bigger accounting errors. The same webpage's speculation about why the opposition was "forced" to bring down AFR is complete rubbish. The opposition tried to get rid of the cabinet any way they could see fit, just like the same parties (now back in opposition) constantly demand the resignation of several cabinet ministers. It can be quite amusing following how often some of the Social Democratic or Radikale spokesmen demand somebody's resignation on TV, but after all, it is an opposition's job to constantly try to bring down the sitting cabinet. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 08:23, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Dear Valentinian

I haven't changed anything in the article itself, but feel that at least two points in the above needs comments: 1) AFR's "resignation" as minister of taxation was in fact him being fired by the primeminister. his "crime" - which had nothing to do with the amount of money, but the fact that he had "grossly misguided" (the words of the commision of inquiry, not mine) the parliament and hence the danish people - was considered so serious, that a majority of said parliament would have removed their support for the entire government, thus leading to its fall, had he stayed in office. 2) Furthermore, his downfall was not due to the left opposition but was actually heralded by the entire parliament, from far left (SF - Socialists People's Party) to far right (Fremskridtspartiet - the forerunners of today's Dansk Folkeparti - Danish People's Party)

Sorry if i've violated any WP-guidelines, this is my first posting here. Oh, by the way, I'm native danish and lives in Copenhagen.

2jakes 20:10, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Greetings 2jakes. First of all, welcome to Wikipedia. It is always a pleasure to see more Danes on this project, and no, you haven't violated any guidelines, so no problem there.

Do you know if the report is somewhere on the net? I'd like to read it. This paragraph is mostly based on my memory of this event, and I don't have photographic memory. Regarding the first part of your message; as I remember the story, Schlüter would very likely have sacked AFR in order to save the cabinet's life, but Fogh managed to step down before Schlüter got around to actually doing it. Was this a voluntary resignation? Well, I consider the resignation of the Santer Commission to be voluntary so I judge Fogh by the same token (some might call this analysis somewhat legalistic, but as I see it, a person is either sacked or not; just like a woman can't be half pregnant.) :) You are quite correct that the background to this story is that the Progress Party threatened with withdrawing its previous support of the cabinet, something which would have brought it down, and that this decision was the event changing the previous parliamentary status quo. It is also possible that my interpretation of these events are somewhat coloured by the fact that I'm all too familiar with seeing bigger budgetary screw-ups in my own town. AFAIK, it has never been proven that AFR deliberately mislead Parliament nor that he actually ordered the department to rig the books. I do of course agree that he did hold the political responsibility of being in charge of a department in disarray. The last description of these events that I've read are Fogh's own [3] but, again, if the report is somewhere on the net, I'd like to read it. Regards. Valentinian ^{T / C} 22:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Valentinian

Thanks for the hearty welcome:-) I tried to find something on the net not too biased on the commisions report and the political struggle going on on- and offstage at the time, but, alas, I couldn't. Whatever I found, it was either from the far left or in complete support of our man of choice:-). But I distinctly remember the wording of the commision quoted above, "grossly misguided" and tv-clips with the late Lilly Gyldenkilde (from SF) and (also late) Kirsten Jakobsen (Fremskridtspartiet), both stating after the publication of the findings of the comission that Anders Fogh Rasmussen would have to go. It is no more than two years ago, I think, that these clips were shown on the sole national commercial tv-station in Denmark (TV2), based in your city:-) I of course agree with you in that Anders Fogh Rasmussen formally resigned - but in order to understand the events, it is equally important to know the background of this resignation - that the parliament found his crime so serious that they would have let the entire cabinet fall, had he not resignated.

But back to the report from the commision: I'm sure that a closer research of the webpage of the parliament [4] would yield the result we're both looking for. Regards 2jakes 21:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Alleged torture hush-hush

There's been a lot of controversy about a case in which danish soldiers with the danish government knowing, have transferred Afghan/Taleban prisoners of war to american prison camps in which they subsequently have been tortured. It has been revealed in a documentary called "Den Hemmelige Krig" meaning "The Secret War" in referral to the alleged 'hush-hush' done by the government. Would someone with the time, dig into this and create a section. Has been done in the danish article.