Rasmus Paludan, the dual Danish-Swedish citizen who has protested Islamism by burning the Muslim holy book the Quran in several European countries, will be charged with “incitement against an ethnic group” in Sweden. Charges were filed Wednesday in Malmö district court for statements made by Pauldan in connection with a 2022 Quran burning outside Malmö.
One of the statements seen by the prosecutor as a violation of Swedish law was:
Freedom of speech means that you are allowed to say things that others in the country do not like to hear. And you can say it without others assaulting or trying to kill you.
The prosecutor’s interpretation of this is “that Muslims don’t like Western democracy and freedom of speech”—which is then in turn deemed to be offensive to the group (that is not explicitly mentioned by Paludan).
A second statement considered in violation of the law is that there could “be a problem” if someone “likes, for example, to use violence as a means of communication” because “it is only God’s word that counts.” This statement, too, was interpreted as denigrating to Muslims.
The fact that Paludan was saying these things in connection with a Quran burning may make the prosecutor’s interpretation less far-fetched—but the activist’s words still appear to be chosen with a certain amount of caution, likely to avoid a hate speech charge.
Not all of his speeches have had the same careful choice of words. On another occasion, Paludan has explicitly pointed to Islam as a threat, including saying that in the past, in places where Islam has taken over, that “makes it very uncomfortable to live there, because Islam makes it not particularly comfortable to live in places. Because Islam does a lot wrong, and there will be a lot of unrest and no harmony in those places.”
Paludan is also charged with, in another speech, making denigrating statements about Africans and Arabs. At that time, he responded to an insult from a man of African descent who called him “skitstövel” [roughly value-equivalent to “bastard”] by telling him to “go home to Africa.” The offended man—who has previous convictions for serious assault and violating women’s privacy and has served time in prison— has requested 60,000 Swedish kronor (approximately €5,200) in damages from Paludan.
Senior prosecutor Adrien Combier-Hogg said in a prepared press statement, “My assessment is that there are sufficient grounds to bring charges, and now the district court will review the case.” The press release also stated that no further comments would be made to the media at this point.
Paludan, who has been interrogated by both Danish and Swedish police, told state broadcaster SvT: “What I understand from the interrogations is that I haven’t said anything criminal; it’s about how others can interpret it. This makes it difficult for me to take a stance on what I said,” adding, “If you as a politician are going to be prosecuted, it’s better to be prosecuted for something you’ve said rather than for something criminal you’ve done.”
The anti-Islam activist, who founded the Islam-critical party Stram Kurs in Sweden and Denmark in 2017, this spring added his name to an open list for a Swedish party that ran unsuccessfully in the EU elections in June.
