Aid groups sue Denmark over arms exports to Israel

COPENHAGEN: Four humanitarian organisations on Tuesday said they were suing Denmark to get it to stop its weapons exports to Israel.

The lawsuit was filed against the national police and the foreign ministry.

“Denmark should not be sending weapons to Israel when there is a reasonable suspicion that it is committing war crimes in Gaza,” Tim Whyte, the secretary general of Action Aid Denmark, one of the organisations behind the lawsuit, said in a statement.

“We need to get the court’s word on Denmark’s responsibility,” he said.

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The three other organisations behind the legal action were the Danish branches of Amnesty International, Oxfam and Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq.

The lawsuit came almost a month after a Dutch court ordered the Netherlands to stop exporting F-35 parts to Israel.

In mid-February, a Dutch appeals court judge ruled that there was “a clear risk that serious violations of humanitarian law of war are committed in the Gaza Strip with Israel’s F-35 fighter planes.”

Several similar lawsuits are underway in other countries, including in Canada where the foreign and justice ministers have been targeted.

But London’s High Court last month rejected a similar petition to suspend British arms exports to Israel. Amnesty International Denmark, Oxfam Denmark, ActionAid Denmark and Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq said in a joint statement they would bring the case against Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Police, which approves Danish sales of weapons and military equipment.

“We feel that we are completely within the lines, the rules of the game that apply,” Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters. The National Police declined immediate comment without having seen details of the lawsuit.

Legal firm Kontra Advokater, who will be representing the NGOs, said it would file the lawsuit to a Copenhagen district court within the next three weeks.

“For five months we have been talking about a potential genocide in Gaza, but we have not seen politicians take action,” Tim Whyte, secretary general of ActionAid Denmark, said.

A Dutch court in February ordered the Netherlands to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns they were being used to violate international law in Gaza.