political violence
Descriptive term for violence with a political motive, not a Danish legal category.
Political violence denotes physical or psychological violence, as well as other unlawful acts, committed for the purpose of promoting, suppressing or reacting to political views, persons or institutions. Under Danish law, the concept is not a fixed, independent legal term in the Danish Penal Code (straffeloven), but functions as a descriptive and analytical concept in criminology, research and the media.
In practice, political violence covers a broad range of acts — from threats and vandalism to assault and homicide — where the decisive characteristic is the political motive behind the act. It is in precisely this sense that the term is used in discussions of cases such as the killing of the German politician Walter Lübcke, where the perpetrator Stephan Ernst acted on a right-wing extremist political worldview.
There is no specific Danish statutory provision regulating "political violence" as a single, unified concept. The individual acts are instead prosecuted under the ordinary criminal provisions on violence, threats or homicide, depending on the nature of the offence. In the most serious cases, where the acts aim to destabilise the social order or frighten the population, there may be overlap with the terrorism provisions in chapter 13 of the Penal Code.
The Finn Nørgaard Association publishes an annual "Barometer for Political Violence" (Barometer for Politisk Vold), which maps and defines politically motivated violence in Denmark. The association's work illustrates that the concept leads an active life outside the Penal Code — as a tool for understanding and documenting a particular category of crime in which the motive, not merely the act itself, is central.
