Rasmus Paludan

ExtremistRight WingWhite SupremacismAnti MuslimIslamophobia

Aug 30

**DOB:** 2 January 1982

**Nationality:** Danish/Swedish

**Location:** North Zealand, Denmark
**Ideology/Affiliation:** Far-right/Anti-Muslim/Anti-immigration/Ethno-nationalism

**Type of Leader:** Lawyer/Politician

Current Status: Founder and chairman of the far-right political party Hard-Line (in Danish: Stram Kurs)

Biography

Paludan is a Danish far-right politician, lawyer, and the founder and leader of the right-wing political party “Hard-Line” - known as Stram Kurs in Danish. Paludan is known for his far-right controversial, Islamophobic, and xenophobic views, especially against Islam. He frequently calls for banning and expelling Muslims and all non-Western citizens from Denmark. He has been described as a right-wing radical, extremist, and hate preacher in the Danish media.

Paludan has made a name for himself, due to his Islamophobic rhetorics and demonstrations, which are often held in urban areas with Muslim-majority immigrants. In his demonstrations, he has repeatedly called the Qur'an (Muslims’ Holy book) “the great whore book” and Islam “gay-Islam”, just as he has burned, spat on, and thrown with the Qur'an and urged followers to urinate on it.

Additionally, he was able to attract attention by recording videos from his demonstrations and uploading them on the party's YouTube channel. In 2020, YouTube shut down the channel, as the platform’s guidelines prohibit harassment and hate speech directed at individuals or groups based on race or religion. In June 2020, Paludan was sentenced to three months in prison for his racist statements and was also deprived of the right, as a lawyer, to conduct criminal cases for three years. However, Paludan denies guilt and has appealed the pending case for acquittal.

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Evidence of Hate Speech/Incitement:

January 2023: In yet another provocative act, far-right Danish politician Rasmus Paludan burned a copy of the Muslim holy book of Quran in front of a mosque in Denmark. The incident took place days after Paludan burned a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm, under police protection and with permission from the authorities.

January 2023: Far-right politician Rasmus Paludan had been permitted by the Swedish police to protest in front of Türkiye’s embassy in Stockholm and set fire to a copy of the Muslim holy book. Many Muslim countries strongly condemned this hateful behaviour.

September 2020: A video uploaded by Paludan shows a follower of his in the Muslim-majority Rinkeby neighbourhood in Sweden burning the Muslim holy book. “Today, Stram Kurs, burned the Quran in Swedish shit hole ghetto Rinkenby,” Paludan wrote on Facebook. “A lot of criminals have said that we would never be able to do this. But we did it. Islam is an evil and primitive religion that has no place in Denmark, Sweden, or any other civilised society,” he added.

May 2019: Paludan frequently fuels his supporters with Islamophobic rhetoric, telling them that Denmark is solely for “ethnic Danes,” that he wants to deport the country's more than 300,000 Muslims, that he wants to outlaw Islam, and that “civil war is coming.”

April 2019: Paludan was found guilty of racism in Glostrup court for the racist remarks he made in a video near the house of Black Lives Matter Denmark's spokesman. In the video, Paludan links between Africans and low intelligence, which was deemed by the court to be unlawful and was considered hate speech. According to many Danish legal experts, many of his remarks and activities do not come under free speech – which must be protected – but are instead hate speech, which is prohibited.