one in Odense. In 2003 about 130 Danish Pakistanis canceled their memberships in Minhaj-ul-Quran in a mass protest against what they described as a closed and undemocratic organization run as a one-man-show by Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri. In 2006 newspaper Jyllands-Posten revealed how the Danish imam and member of Minhaj-ul-Quran Naveed Baig urged the murder of apostates from Islam in a video recording from a gathering held in Minhaj-ul-Quran's mosque in Valby in 1994. Baig was translating a speech held in Urdu by a guest imam from Pakistan to Danish. Minhaj-ul-Quran Norway Having established in Copenhagen during the late 1980s, Tahir-ul-Qadri's cassettes and videotapes started spreading throughout much of the Pakistani diaspora community in Norway. In 1990 the Norwegian branch of the Minhaj-ul-Quran International organization was founded in Oslo in 1990. It was started out by 20-30 people renting two small rooms in Tøyengata at Tøyen in central Oslo. Its number of memberships quickly increased. In February 1999 a department of Minhaj-ul-Quran was founded in Stavanger. In 2006 the Oslo department had close to 4000 members, and was the third largest mosque in Oslo after Central Jamaat-e Ahl-e Sunnat and World Islamic Mission. Drammen Moské, founded in 1987, was affiliated with Minhaj-ul-Quran for some time, but chose to cut their ties. MQI has various community related projects which are supported by the Norwegian Government. One of the main projects is the Minhaj Conflict Resolution or Minhaj Konfliktråd (MKR). Minhaj-ul-Quran differs from other mosques in Oslo by openly endorsing the Pakistani political party Pakistan Awami Tehreek, while other mosques either do not participate in similar political activities or claim not be involved in politics. Their engagement in this specific political party is due to both organizations sharing the same founder in Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri. When Tahir-ul-Qadri backed Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa of 1989 demanding the execution of Salman Rushdie for writing a book perceived as blasphemous towards Islam, he received support from the leader of the Norwegian branch of Minhaj-ul-Quran, who also criticized the Norwegian authorities for even communicating with Rushdie. In 2000 the Oslo department deposed its imam Syed Ikram Jillani on the grounds that the board asserted his teachings were contrary to that of Tahir ul-Qadris. Leader of Minhaj Ungdom, Faiz Alam, justified the dismissal by pointing out that the congregation is following the philosophy of its religious head Tahir ul-Qadri in Pakistan, using his books and videos, and cannot accept that