A 49-year-old Imam is facing charges in
Denmark over comments he made against the LGBT community following
last year's massacre at a gay club in Orlando.
Forty-nine people died and dozens were
injured when a lone gunman who claimed allegiance to the so-called
Islamic State opened fire at the Pulse nightclub. Police killed the
gunman after a three-hour standoff.
Hundreds of people on June 12, 2017
gathered outside Pulse to mark the one-year anniversary of the
deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
(Related: Orlando
remembers Pulse victims one year after shooting.)
According to the AP, Danish prosecutors
have charged the imam for public comments he made last summer against
gays, whom he compared to pedophiles.
The imam, who was not identified by
prosecutors, has since withdrawn his comments, according to
Jyllands-Posten, one of Denmark's largest newspapers.
He is quoted in an article in Skive
Folkeblad as saying that “homosexuality is unnatural. It's
like having sex with animals. It is similarly abnormal.”
The group Anmeldhad.dk, a group that
tracks hate speech, reported the imam to the police.
He is charged with making comments
deemed threatening, insulting or degrading to a group of persons
because of their sexual orientation and faces a fine and up to two
years in jail if found guilty.