Excerpt:
The Muslim youth organisation Muslimsk Ungdom i Danmark has attracted strong criticism for its decision to invite the controversial preacher Shahid Mehdi to speak at an event on Sunday, TV2 News reports.
Mehdi was quoted in 2004 as saying that women who don't wear headscarves are in many ways themselves to blame if they are raped.
Bad timing
Lars Aslan Rasmussen, a member of Copenhagen's municipal council for Socialdemokraterne, is among the critics of Mehdi's involvement in the event. Rasmussen commented on the event's timing, coming soon after multiple sexual assaults on New Year's Eve in the German city of Cologne, in which North African and Arabic men are the suspects.