COPENHAGEN: The European Court of Justice is to rule Thursday whether a Danish law requiring authorities to redevelop poor urban “ghettos” with high concentrations of “non-Western immigrants and their descendants” is discriminatory.
The law means that all social housing estates where more than half of residents are “non-Western” — previously defined as “ghettos” by the government — must rebuild, renovate and change the social mix by renting at least 60 percent of the homes at market rates by 2030.
Danish authorities, which have for decades advocated a hard line on immigration, say the law is aimed at eradicating segregation and “parallel societies” in poor neighborhoods that often struggle with crime.
In the Mjolnerparken housing estate in central Copenhagen, long associated with petty crime and delinquency, residents are confident they’ll win the case they’ve brought before the European court.
They argue that using their ethnicity to decide where they can live is discriminatory and illegal.
