How Denmark took a hard line on Immigrants | Foreign Correspondent

‘What is Danish?’ asks comedian Ellie Jokar. Born in Iran, now a Dane, Ellie struggles to understand why her once friendly country has pulled up the welcome mat. Hamish Macdonald explores a nation with an identity crisis. It’s one of the most open and equal countries in the world. Denmark has long had a reputation for welcoming migrants and protecting its minorities. But these days there are fractures in this once cohesive society. Its mood of tolerance has shifted and now migrants feel on the outer. ‘When do you feel Danish? What is Danish?’, asks actress and comedian Ellie Jokar, who arrived in Denmark from Iran with her family when she was four. Now she feels she lives in a no man’s land. “I define myself as a grey zone kid because people like me are not accepted by the Danes and not accepted by the Muslims.” In recent years, the government has passed a hundred laws which place strict controls on immigrants: they’ve frozen the intake of refugees, banned the burqa in publ