The Danish Government has been accused of ‘racism’ over a controversial plan to break up so-called ‘ghettos’ of inner-city immigrant communities to encourage integration.

The sweeping package of laws, which has received all-party support, allows large numbers of ‘non-western’ people to be evicted and moved elsewhere.

The aim is to redevelop urban areas with high concentration of immigrant populations – often plagued by higher crime and unemployment, lower wages and educational standards.

But ethnic minorities complain that the government is treating them as second-class citizens and the law is to be challenged in the European Court of Justice.

The architect of the tough legislation, former Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen has warned darkly that ghettos could ‘reach out their tentacles onto the streets’ by spreading violence, and that because of ghettos, ‘cracks have appeared on the map of Denmark.’

Danes who do not live in the ghetto areas are free to choose whether to enrol their children in pre-school up to the age of six.

MailOnline visited Mjolnerparken, one of the estates hit by the anti-ghetto law, whose residents have launched a legal test case against the government.

Amid charges of racism, the word ‘ghetto’ was subsequently dropped from the measures, and replaced with terms such as ‘parallel societies’ but cross-party MPs agreed that something was needed to force immigrants to integrate or assimilate with their adopted homeland.

Critics argue that the laws are a blunt weapon which only serve to destroy settled communities – many of which had sprung up precisely because the government had housed people there.

A group of four young women from Tingbjerg, led by Masters student, Amina Safi, 23, who is from an Afghan background, wrote eloquently to the housing minister about the policy.

Eight out of 10 people in Mjolnerparken are deemed ‘non-Western’, with people from non-EU countries in the Balkans and Eastern Europe also falling into that category.

On the estate and in 14 other areas across Denmark, if the ethnicity criteria is met, along with others concerning unemployment levels, overcrowding and crime rates, and below-average levels of higher education, then the area is deemed subject to the new laws.

One of the residents affected was Muhammad Aslam, 57, the chairman of the estate’s tenants’ association.

It’s hard to imagine a more assimilated Danish citizen than transport firm boss Mr Aslam, who arrived in the country from Pakistan as a child aged seven.

Yet he and his four grown-up children, (doctor, lawyer, civil engineer and social worker) are all classed as ‘non-western’ under the rules, so consequently, last year he had to leave the flat where all the children were born and brought up, and will not be allowed to return.

Ironically, in 2005, when a Danish newspaper provoked condemnation across the Muslim world by depicting cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, Mr Aslam was hand-picked by the government to be part of a delegation sent to Cairo to try and calm the situation following violent protests outside the Danish Embassy there.

‘Given the way the government is now treating me, I feel uncomfortable about the way I described Danish liberal democracy and tolerance to the Egyptians back then,’ he told MailOnline, standing below his former family home for more than 30 years.

IT consultant Jumana El-Subaihi, 44, has lived in Denmark since the age of three, but now, because of her Palestinian heritage, feels she and her family are being discriminated against.

The second-floor non-profit housing flat, in one of the 18 blocks which form the estate, is currently being refurbished with new windows and doors, kitchens and bathrooms.

His block is one of two which have been sold to a private developer who will move in new tenants paying around 50% more than Mr Aslam did.

He says he could afford the rent rise, but would still be barred from moving back in, because the new-look Mjolnerparken will be restricted to only 50 per cent ‘non-westerners’.

‘When the Danish Government needed me to help solve their diplomatic problem I was only too happy to help,’ he reflected ruefully, ‘but now they treat me and my family as second-class citizens because of the colour of our skin.’

The Mjolnerparken residents are suing Denmark for discrimination, with the European Court of Justice due to rule in the coming months.

Another Mjolnerparken evictee is Sara, a 44-year-old Bosnian Muslim who came to Denmark from war-torn former Yugoslavia as a child.

‘My family left Bosnia because the Serbs were using ‘ethnic cleansing’ and expelling people like me at the point of a gun,’ the single mother-of-one told MailOnline.

‘What is happening here is hardly any different, whether you call it ‘social’ or ‘ethnic cleansing’.’

Mjolnerparken was home to me and my son, and we were part of a big family with a support network. I knew everyone and saw my neighbours’ children…