Rasmus Paludan (born 2 January 1982) is a Danish-Swedish politician, lawyer and anti-Islam activist.
Paludan is the leader of the Danish political party Stram Kurs ("Hard Line"), which he founded in 2017. He has held numerous demonstrations in which he has burned the Quran, leading to counter-protests, some marked by violence and burning of cars. He is currently wanted by Turkish authorities after having burned a Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm. He is considered to be far-right and right-wing extremist by political scientists and news media.
Paludan is under constant police protection due to threats against him for his activism.
Family, education, and early career
Paludan is the older brother of poet Tine Paludan and writer Martin Paludan. Paludan himself has a migration background as his father is Swedish journalist Tomas Polvall and he has lived in Sweden at times, which he says gives him the right to Swedish citizenship. In October 2020 Paludan was officially declared a Swedish citizen by authorities as his father is Swedish.
According to his father, Paludan had to pause his studies due to an accident where he was hit by a car while cycling and had to undergo brain surgery. He has a bachelor's degree in law.
As of September 2022, Paludan was studying theology at the University of Copenhagen.
Legal career
Paludan has acted as defence attorney in a number of cases involving self-styled "critics of the system" and proponents of medical cannabis, such as Lars Kragh Andersen, but also in several cases involving immigrant asylum. Between September 2015 and August 2018 Paludan was employed as a lecturer at the law faculty of the University of Copenhagen in the areas of civil law and property law.
Policies and demonstrations
In 2016 Paludan started attending meetings of the International Free Press Society, and participated in all the demonstrations of the anti-Islamic group For Frihed (formerly Pegida Denmark) that year. He also held a speech at one of their demonstrations.
Paludan founded the Stram Kurs party in 2017 which present strong extremist views on Islam and non-western immigration. Paludan is strongly opposed to non-Western immigration and Islam's presence in Denmark. He is well known for his numerous events and political demonstrations, often in areas with many Muslim immigrants. During these demonstrations, he has presented anti-immigrant and racist statements and taunted Muslims (and Islam as a whole), often resulting in counter-protests. At his protests, Paludan has burned the Quran and defaced it in other ways that many Muslims find offensive. Videos of the subsequent confrontations are shared on YouTube where his party has gathered a large following. Ideologically, some observers have considered Paludan a counter-jihadist, but he considers himself to be an ethno-nationalist.
Paludan calls for putting expelled foreign citizens unwilling and unable to travel back to their country in detention camps in North-Eastern Greenland, which is a Danish island.
In June 2020, Paludan held a demonstration in Aarhus, Denmark, when a 52-year-old man pulled out a knife, entered the cordoned-off area, and ran towards Paludan. Police fired a warning shot, but the assailant did not lay down his weapon, whereupon police opened fire and wounded the assailant in the leg. In the aftermath, there was unrest in the area. Police were hit by fireworks and rocks were thrown by other assailants in the Gellerup area of Aarhus.
Quran incidents
In April 2019, Paludan held a demonstration in Viborg, Denmark, which led to chaos with the presence of about 100 counter-protesters. Three people were arrested and, in June 2019, a 24-year-old Syrian in Denmark was sentenced to 60 days in jail for having thrown a rock at Paludan. The offender was also to be deported after the jail term, and was banned from returning to Denmark for six years.
In connection with a planned Quran burning in Malmö in August 2020, Paludan was banned from entering Sweden for two years, but in October he was granted Swedish citizenship due to his father's citizenship. His supporters burned a Quran, which led to violent riots.
In April 2022, Paludan again organised and announced several demonstrations in major Swedish cities, where he burned or said that he would burn a Quran. This led to rioting by counter-protesters, including destruction of private and public property and attacks on police. Riots also erupted in the lead-up to his demonstration.