Danish police secretly bugged a journalist working for Denmark's largest morning newspaper to try to identify his sources within the Islamic community, the Jyllands-Posten newspaper reported Aug. 28.
Police were given permission to bug conversations between journalist Stig Matthiesen and his news desk, and this week a Copenhagen court granted the police's request to suspend an article of the law giving the media the right to protect its sources.
The newspaper has appealed the court's ruling.
If the appeals court upholds the decision and Matthiesen refuses to reveal his sources, he could face a fine and up to six months in prison.
The bugging is the first case to arise since the police were granted more extensive surveillance powers under anti-terrorist legislation adopted following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
"It is unfortunately the first example, and we should expect more in the future. That is why this case is so important in principle," press lawyer Oluf Joergensen said.
Matthiesen wrote an article on Aug. 11 about tensions between Jewish and Palestinian groups in Denmark and said rumors were circulating in fundamentalist Islamic circles of a 250,000 kroner (33,600 euro) reward for the murder of Jewish public figures in the country.
According to Jyllands-Posten, Matthiesen has refused to cooperate with police.
Jyllands-Posten managing director Joergen Ejboel said the police methods were an "abuse of power, totally incompatible with a democratic legal system."
He said Jyllands-Posten had collaborated with police by providing other information, including a list of names of Jewish public figures to be assassinated.
Matthiesen himself expressed skepticism, however, about the reports of a bounty and list of names, and said a source had told him that "perhaps Jews had planted these death threats themselves in order to win sympathy" in Denmark.
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