Inuit lawmaker asked to leave the podium at Danish Parliament after speaking only in Greenlandic

Associated Press

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A lawmaker representing Greenland in Denmark’s Parliament was asked to leave the podium of the assembly because she refused to translate her speech into Danish. Aki-Matilda Høgh-Dam, from the social democratic Siumut party, had distributed a written translation of her speech but was told it could only be debated if she also delivered it in Danish. Hoegh-Dam is at the center of a debate about whether lawmakers from Greenland and the Faeroe Islands can speak in their own tongues before the Danish parliament. She demands simultaneous translation but the speaker says the parliament is not equipped for that.