On Saturday, the right-wing Denmark Democrats (Danmarksdemokraterne) held their annual party conference.
Party leader Inger Støjberg gave a stumbling speech against the backdrop of a fairly poor election result earlier in the year and grumpy murmurs in the party rank-and-file.
During the speech, Støjberg spent almost four minutes of her 37-minute speech speaking about one particular person: Mohamed Abdi Kahn.
But who is he, and why won’t politicians stop talking about him?
Abdi Kahn in short
Mohamed Abdi Kahn first came to Denmark from Ethiopia in 2015 as a political refugee.
He was able to successfully achieve family reunification with his wife in 2017. The couple have six children.
However, Abdi Kahn is not a particularly big fan of Denmark. He has repeatedly raged against the country on Facebook, where he has over 19,000 followers.
On his Facebook, he has called Denmark “lortelandet” (roughly translated: the shit country) and referred to the Danish population as “racists and egotists”.
Repatriation in 2022
In 2022, Abdi Kahn and his wife accepted a repatriation deal with Denmark that saw them receive 580,000 Danish kroner for moving back to Ethiopia.
However, they quickly regretted the move and returned to Denmark later in the same year, using a right to change their minds that is built into the repatriation scheme. To TV 2 he said, “I have travelled to Ethiopia. But we have come back, of course. It has not worked out as we wanted.”
This means they must repay the money they initially took. However, they still owe roughly 550,000 kroner, according to Jyllands-Posten.
Has applied for permanent residency
The previous week, Jyllands-Posten reported that Abdi Kahn’s residence permit lapsed on 10 September this year. However, he applied for permanent residency before it lapsed, so he is not in breach of the rules.
Abdi Kahn confirmed to B.T.: “I applied back in February, but there was a formal error, and so I formally applied in June.”
However, Ekstra Bladet has reported that Abdi Kahn only intends to get residency in Denmark so that he can move to another EU country due to his dislike for Denmark.
Politicians want him out
Abdi Kahn, his initial repatriation payment, and his attempt to gain Danish permanent residency have caught the attention of many politicians on the Danish right.
Støjberg in particular has been very vocal about Abdi Kahn and all the controversy around him. The two of them clashed in a heated episode of the podcast Borgerlig Tabloid, and according to B.T., Abdi Kahn has reported Støjberg to the police over a remark she made about Muslims on TV 2, which he calls racist.
Støjberg told B.T.: “He is a disgrace. I cannot comprehend that that man is in Denmark. He must leave. The sooner, the better.”
And she has raged against the European conventions that make it hard to throw him out of Denmark now.
She said: “But there is something completely wrong with these conventions if you cannot throw out a man like him. He is just freeloading on us, while at the same time badmouthing us.”
Willing to leave… For a price
Abdi Kahn does not, however, refuse to leave Denmark entirely. He has made the country an offer: pay him 3.5 million kroner and he leaves.
This is an offer he has posted about on Facebook many times, and has clarified that he would then move to Djibouti.
In a post on Facebook in September, he wrote: “Just accept that I will obtain permanent residence and Danish citizenship, since I fulfil all the crazy and difficult conditions that you have set. Or pay 3.5 million kroner for your remigration wish.
“Note that the price rises to 7 million kroner when I obtain permanent residence, and it rises further to 14 million kroner when my six children and I obtain Danish citizenship.”
The Danish Dispatch has contacted Mohamed Abdi Kahn for a comment, but he had not responded.
