A survey conducted for Jyllands-Posten shows that a majority of Danes (52.5 percent) believe their freedom of expression is not under threat.
Despite last week's terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and Jyllands-Posten's decision not to publish the magazine's drawings for security reasons, the poll has revealed a similar result to a year ago.
A safe distance from France
Rune Stubager, a researcher from Aarhus University, was surprised the latest events were not reflected in the figure.
"My immediate explanation would be the distance. This was something that happened in France and not in Denmark," said Stubager according to Jyllands-Posten.
However, the attacks were reflected in another results. Some 87.4 percent of the respondents who feel their freedom of speech is being threatened – a total of 41.7 percent of the population – blame Islamic terrorism.
In a survey conducted in December 2013, that percentage was only 75.5.
Entrenched opinions about Islam
Johannes Andersen, an associate professor of political science at Aalborg University, believes that many years of debate about the Mohammed cartoons have rooted entrenched opinions in people, which shows in the results.
Mogens Lykketoft, the chairman of the Parliament, believes that as long as people don't feel their freedom of expression is under threat, they are more likely to put their opinions forward. He was pleased to see the survey's results.
