HASWith his blond mane, Rasmus Paludan, a 40-year-old Danish lawyer, has become the figurehead of Islamophobes in Denmark for five years, by organizing burnings of Korans, leading to violent demonstrations and riots, as in 2019 in neighborhoods in large immigrant population in Copenhagen. In the wake of his latest anti-Islam “tour”, serious violence has taken place since Thursday, April 14 in several Swedish cities, particularly in the south of the country, leaving at least 40 injured, including 26 police officers.
Founder in 2017 of the Stram Kurs party, Hard line, anti-Muslim immigrants, he crisscrossed Denmark leading his crusade in dozens of cities, always under heavy police protection, spreading the same Islamophobic message. Assaulted several times, he calls himself “the most threatened man in Denmark”, often wearing a bulletproof vest to protect himself from his detractors who are indignant at his remarks denigrating “the Koran which, according to him, propagates principles incompatible with the values Danish”. For him, “it is legal to desecrate the Koran by burning it, throwing it away or wrapping it in a piece of bacon, or to draw the prophet. But nobody dares to do it, because the risk of being attacked or killed is very great,” he confided, referring to the cartoons of Muhammad published in September 2005 in the Danish daily Jyllands Posten, which plunged the country into the most serious crisis in its contemporary history. “But I don’t think violent people should decide the limits of our freedom of expression. Those who refuse our ideals just have to leave,” he says.
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Failure in Parliament
Provocative, he does not hesitate to blow the wind of Islamophobia in other countries, such as on November 11, 2020 when he was arrested in Paris while planning to burn a Koran under the Arc de Triomphe. The next day, Belgium declares him persona non grata, because he was preparing a burning of the sacred book in the town of Molenbeek.
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“Soldier of freedom”, “protector of the weak” or “hope of the North” for some, “preacher of hatred”, “clown” and “racist” for others, Rasmus Paludan leaves no one indifferent, especially that he has created his own channel on YouTube, “The Voice of Freedom”, whose videos have been viewed more than 25 million times. He attracts a number of far-right emulators, to the point of collecting the 20,000 signatures required to participate with his party in the June 2019 legislative elections, where he won 1.8% of the vote, narrowly missing his entry into Parliament where 2% of the votes were needed to sit on it.
Stubborn, he was naturalized Swedish in 2020 to lead his anti-Islam fight in neighboring Sweden, scandalized by his lax immigration policy which, according to him, constitutes “a threat against Denmark”. He registers his Hard Line party in Sweden, hoping to participate in the parliamentary elections in September in this country and “scream loud and clear that Islam is the face of obscurantism that must be fought”.