Two men convicted for threats against Sønderborg Pride, chairperson says ruling sends a message

Two men were found guilty on Wednesday at the court in Sønderborg for making threats against the Sønderborg Pride event when it first came to the city in 2022, Danish broadcaster DR reports. The men had posted hateful comments on the Sønderborg Nyt Facebook page about the pride event.

One wrote, “What is happening with Sønderborg?” to which the other replied, “Hope we hit one of them.” The first then responded, “Not just one, as many as possible. The more the better – feel free to run over one or ten.”

Both men admitted to writing the comments but said they were carried away by the moment and would never have carried out any threat. They were each sentenced to 40 days of suspended imprisonment and 60 hours of unpaid community service.

Niels Christian Aahøj Bech, chairperson of LGBTQ+ Sønderborg, said he is satisfied with the verdict. “LGBTQ+ Sønderborg is very pleased with today’s ruling, among other things because we have never seen anything like this end in a penalty before,” he said. He acknowledged that some members of the association may be disappointed the sentence was suspended, but said: “For my part, I think the sentence is good because they never intended to carry out these threats in reality.”

The threats frightened many members, but the association continues to organise pride parades. Bech said he hopes the ruling will make people think before they write: “You are allowed to be against our sexuality or our way of being. But you need to keep a decent tone in the discussion, and you should certainly not start threatening people like in this case.”

Tags: Denmark, LGBTQ+, court case