'I should never have smiled at him': Nightclub owner bans migrants from club when language barrier leads to sexual harrassment

Nightclub owner stresses migrants 'need to learn a smile isn't an invitation for sex.'

Tom Holden Jensen, the owner of a Danish nightclub, decided to ban all migrants who don't speak Danish, English or German from his Buddy Holly club in Sřenderborg. The controversial decision was made after several women claimed they felt threatened and intimidated by men who 'raped them with hands' on the dance floor.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Daily Mail reported Jensen's decision to ban refugees who couldn't effectively communicate from his club when he realized they couldn't understand what the word "no" meant.

Though Jensen's ban was enforced to protect women, it breaches Denmark's racial discrimination laws. The club owner could face up to six months in prison for breaking the law, but he remains unrepentant.

"The challenge we face is that we can't communicate with refugees, they don't understand what I am saying at all," Jensen explained.

"We reserve the right to operate our business as we have done all the [sic] years, also before there was a war in Syria, and we intend to continue that also after the war ends. And if someone thinks differently they are welcome to try it in court."

To put the situation into perspective, Jensen explained how the security staff complained to him that migrants were unable to understand that a woman's smile was not an invitation for sex.

"We have experienced episodes where Syrians have danced too close to women [sic] occasions when they have put their hands on their bottoms," Jensen described. "They continue to do so even though the women told them to stop and leave them. But it's too much of a challenge when they don't speak a language we understand so we and the women cannot communicate with them.

"We have these challenges with all men, whatever their nationality, not only the Syrian refugees, and we have always had those challenges. But it makes it a the [sic] challenge and more [sic] difficult to solve the situations with men in larger groups who act inappropriately towards women when they don't speak a language we understand.

"In those situations we will have to be physical rather than verbal to them, and we have no desire to be. And we have actually had this language rule since 1997."

Glenn Hollender, the owner of Den Flyvende Hollender, "The Flying Dutchman," agrees with Jensen's rule and has decided to follow suit.

"A large number of men who come from the asylum centre have a very hard time respecting the opposite sex. In my eyes, it is harassment when one or more men continue to touch a young woman after she has said 'stop'. [sic] It Is [sic] clear that if we ask one of our male guests to stop pulling on a girl, so they must be able to understand what we mean.

"There were simply too many examples of how they ignored the recommendations that we came by to let the female guests in peace."

Since Europe's massive influx of refugees, there have been an increase in sexual offences. Women have reported they were afraid to go out alone at night and that their polite smiles are often misinterpreted.

Marlene, a cashier at a grocery store, shared her experience with Mail Online. She described that she smiled at a Syrian man, who approached her and put his hands on her face.

"Since then he started following me where ever [sic] I went," she explained. "I tried to push him away but he just wouldn't give up. I was scared. Later he turned up at the supermarket with his friend. I should never have smiled at him. Now I don't dare walk around in the town alone at night."

As with all communities, people have acknowledged the fact that the few who have behaved inappropriately represent only a small fraction of migrants, and men in general.

Three women who frequent the Danish clubs shared: "It's not uncommon here that the [local] men touch us women when they get drunk, but we just punch them with our elbows in their stomachs when it happens. We heard about the incidents in the city with the refugee men, but we never experienced it ourselves from them."

Tine Birkelund Thomsen, a lawyer from the Institute for Human Rights in Denmark, believes club owners are using female complaints to practice discrimination, but admits: "The law is not black and white, but it is a question about whether it is proportional what they do to the discotheque when they reject the Syrians.

"But if it is because they do it as an excuse to keep a specific ethnic group out of the discotheque which [sic] it seems like it is discrimination and against the law."

A police spokesman stated: "I am not able to tell if the language part in the law refers to the nationality part in the racism law at present. It is up to legal experts to assess if it [is] illegal to reject refugees because they don't speak Danish, English or German."

Meanwhile, Jensen claims race has nothing to do with the decision, which was made to protect women while generating revenue and avoiding harassment problems. 

Jensen simply responded: "There have been no charges filed against me at all and when aa lawyer says they think it might be illegal it says to me that he is also not on safe ground in his judgements. There is nothing racist about it."

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