Denmark plans to ban Islamic call to prayer: Why the adhan is back at the centre of immigration debate

Why the proposal has returned

Howls from the Muslims!.Denmark plans to ban Islamic call to prayer: ‘Shouldn’t sound like a suburb of Islamabad’ https://t.co/I8fQyWbgsm via https://t.co/QHByxrgmbJ

— Justin Lees🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (@alfamito155) June 25, 2026

The Adhan is a prayer that is performed five times a day to summon Muslim worshippers to their mosque, typically announced through loudspeakers in minarets.

This is a third instance where a Danish immigrant minister has attempted to build a legal framework for banning the call to prayer, after similar attempts by the Social Democrats in 2020 and 2025.

This is followed by Mette Frederiksen’s third term, beginning earlier this month. Her administration has overseen some of Europe’s toughest migration policies and is often cited as a model for the “low immigration left,” which is an approach that some centrist political figures elsewhere in Europe have looked to emulate.

How Denmark’s immigration policy has hardened

The Adhan review fits a pattern of increasingly hardline migration policy that has defined Danish politics for years. The country’s “ghetto” legislation gives authorities the power to compel residents to leave neighbourhoods classified as having too high a share of foreign-born residents. Separate rules allow officials to require asylum seekers to hand over jewellery and other valuables to offset housing costs, while those whose applications are ultimately denied are left without financial assistance.

This approach has made Denmark something of an outlier among its neighbours. During the 2015 refugee crisis, when well over a million people crossed into Europe fleeing war and instability in West Asia, Denmark took in markedly fewer asylum seekers than comparable countries. Its foreign-born population remains smaller as a result, a gap that successive governments, including Frederiksen’s, have treated as a policy success rather than an anomaly to correct.

For context, Denmark is home to roughly 270,000 Muslims out of a total population of about six million, served by an estimated 100 mosques. Notably, the Grand Mosque of Copenhagen already refrains from broadcasting an outdoor call to prayer under a voluntary arrangement with local authorities, a fact critics have cited as evidence that the practice is far less widespread than the political rhetoric around it suggests.

What happens next?

Reaction has fallen along predictable lines. Supporters of a ban say loudspeaker broadcasts are an anachronism in an age of smartphone alarms and argue the issue is really about noise and shared public space, not religion.

The government has yet to say when it expects the legal review to conclude. Whether the proposal ultimately becomes law could depend on its compatibility with Denmark’s constitutional protections and European human rights obligations.