Jewish radio station in Copenhagen taking break for security reasons

Marcy Oster

(JTA) — The Jewish radio program based in Copenhagen cancelled its daily broadcast for security reasons.

The Danish Security and Intelligence Service, whose acronym in Danish is PET, told the radio station that holding the broadcast from its studio in a basement in the Norrebo neighborhood of Copenhagen is too dangerous, the Radio Shalom program’s host Abraham Kopenhagen told the Danish-language newspaper DR Nyheder, according to the  Copenhagen Post.

Kopenhagen said that the program will be back on the air when PET tells them that it is safe.

“We do not feel that it is too dangerous, but we respect the information we are given,” Kopenhagen told DR Nyheder.

Kopenhagen said that the PET security agency offered to protect the station while it was broadcasting. The program turned the offer down.

“We must do as instructed, but we will not have police standing outside the door,” he said. “We would rather close down until it is quiet again. I do not know how long that will take.”

The program includes local, international and Israel news; cultural programming and interviews with prominent local and international figures.

The Jewish school in Copenhagen, Carolineskolen, also closed on Monday.

Two policemen and a volunteer civilian guard were shot outside of the Copenhagen’s central synagogue attack while they provided security outside the building in which a bat mitzvah party was taking place. The civilian guard, Dan Uzan, 37, died later from his injuries.

The shooting after midnight Sunday at the central synagogue in Krystalgade followed a shooting the previous afternoon at a free speech event at a cultural center featuring the Danish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who is under police protection because of his cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad. One person was killed.