Personal Info
- Country of residence: Denmark
Information
Naser Khader (born July 1, 1963) is Danish-Syrian and a member of the Parliament of Denmark for the Conservative People's Party. He was first elected to Parliament representing the Danish Social Liberal Party in 2001. In 2007 he left this party to found New Alliance (later Liberal Alliance), whom he represented from 2007 until 5 January 2009. A leading proponent of peaceful co-existence of democracy and Islam, he established a new movement, Moderate Muslims (later renamed Democratic Muslims), when the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began.
Naser Khader is the son of a Palestinian father and a Syrian mother. He was raised in a small rural town outside Damascus in the traditional Syrian way. As a Palestinian refugee, his father had difficulties getting a good job in Syria, and although they lived in the village of his wife, she was often referred to as "The one who married a stranger".
Naser Khader was named after Egyptian president Nasser. Khader's father emigrated to Europe in the 1960s—a period when European countries had begun the call for foreign workers. Naser himself did not join his father until 1974, when he moved from his village in Syria to a flat in central Copenhagen, Denmark. He graduated from the Rysensteen Gymnasium in 1983.
In 2006, he was awarded Jyllands-Posten's Freedom of Expression award. As the newspaper had published cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad the award affected the perception of Khader among "practicing Muslims" according to Tim Jensen,.
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