The Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir movement held a Friday prayer session at the Christiansborg Square, where the Danish house of parliament is located, the Jyllands-Posten newspaper reported.
According to Hizb ut-Tahrir, the idea of the collective prayer was to show their dissatisfaction with the tone towards Muslims in the public debate. The movement also held politicians complicit in the terrorist attack last week that hit New Zealand and killed 50 Muslims.
The Islamist movement accused Danish politicians of having a condescending attitude towards Muslims and regarding them as a problem.
On the other side of the Holmen Canal, a counter-demonstration organised by Stram Kurs ("Hard Line") Danish nationalists was held. Before the event, the anti-Islam party, which strictly opposed immigration from the Middle East, announced that it would burn a Quran wrapped in bacon.
Today, Stram Kurs members made good on their promise, after throwing a Quran back and forth between themselves and chanting "Denmark! Denmark!".
Despite the foreseeable tensions, no major unrest occurred due to heavy policing. Several eggs were thrown at Stram Kurs leader Rasmus Paludan, and a single arrest has been made so far.
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Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international pan-Islamist organisation that aims to enforce a Muslim state governed by Sharia law. Despite being banned in the majority of Arab countries (with only a few exceptions), as well as in Russia, Germany and China, the organisation remains active in vast parts of Europe. Denmark houses Hizb ut-Tahrir's Scandinavian headquarters and has pondered banning the organisation on several occasions.
Stram Kurs is a fringe party that identifies as "ethno-nationalist". The party was founded in 2017, but has since made headlines in Denmark with symbolic Quran burnings made possible after the repealing of Denmark's age-old blasphemy law. The party describes these actions as "Bacon a-la Quran".
* Hizb ut-Tahrir is an extremist organisation banned in Russia