Why is Denmark separating ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ citizens?
Seven families from Helsingor face their former landlord in Denmark’s Supreme Court, arguing they were forced from their homes because of their origin.
Their leases were terminated in 2022 under the law, once known as the 'ghetto law', which targets social housing estates where more than half of residents are classed as 'non-Western'.
The government claims the law is aimed at integration. But rights groups have for years fought against the measures, saying they are discriminatory.
The families' lawyer, Eddie Khawaja, told AFP: 'It’s about whether the criteria regarding the tenants’ origin is neutral or not.'
The case is being heard in a two-day hearing that began on Friday.
The meaning of 'non-Western'
The label is a statistical one that covers most of the world. Statistics Denmark defines 'non-Western' as any country outside the EU, with a long list of exceptions including the United States and Norway.
The UN Human Rights Office noted that the effect is that 'non-Western' disproportionately means Denmark's non-white, non-European ethnic populations.
The label also covers descendants: anyone born in Denmark if neither parent is a Danish citizen born in the country.
That means a Danish citizen born and raised in Copenhagen can still be 'non-Western'.
How the law works
Every December 1, the government names 'parallel societies'. These are social housing areas of at least 1,000 people where more than 50 percent are 'non-Western' immigrants and descendants.
An area must also meet two of four criteria on unemployment, crime, education, and income.
Areas on the list for five years become 'transformation areas', which the government used to call 'hard ghettos'.
They must cut public family housing to 40 percent by 2030 through sales, demolition or conversion.
An estate with the same social problems but fewer 'non-Western' residents faces no such obligation.
The government's goal
The law was part of a plan called 'One Denmark without Parallel Societies: No Ghettos in 2030'.
In 2021, former interior minister Kaare Dybvad Bek said too many non-Western foreigners in one area 'increases the risk of an emergence of religious and cultural parallel societies'.
About 11,000 people across Denmark will have to leave their homes by 2030, according to tenants' associations.
The legal challenge
In Helsingor, the landlord Boliggarden announced in early 2020 that it would renovate 96 apartments at the Nojsomhed estate. It then terminated the tenants' leases. Most of those tenants were of foreign origin.
Riad, a 33-year-old plaintiff, told AFP: 'They didn’t want the estate to be labelled 'hard ghetto' so they wanted to forcibly move us out when we advocated for other solutions'.
The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in December 2025 that nationality or country of birth alone does not determine ethnic origin, but an allegedly neutral criterion covering many origins could be linked to ethnicity.
Danish judges ultimately make the final decision about whether the law violated Danish laws prohibiting ethnic discrimination.
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