Rasmus Paludan

Rasmus Paludan is a Danish lawyer, YouTuber, and provocateur politician who gained fame going to predominantly Muslim immigrant areas and calling locals "societal losers" and followers of "homo-Islam," sometimes posting videos of people burning copies of the Qur'an, which he has called “The Whore Book” and "Little Shit Book." In 2022, Paludan changed focus to Sweden, both provoking a larger series of in areas dense with Muslim immigrants, and entering a branch of his party Stram Kurs in the 2022 Swedish elections – followed by it getting almost no votes and fading into obscurity.

Born to a Danish mother and a Swedish father, and raised in North Zealand, Denmark, a place predominately inhabited by the Danish upper crust, Paludan was according to his family previously by all means a fairly average person amongst his relatively well-off economic peer group. Paludan began his studies at law at the University of Copenhagen in 2001, and appears to only have been moderately interested in politics and was known to vote for the Danish Social Liberal Party for most of his early youth. In 2005, however, Paludan was involved in a serious traffic accident, where he was struck by a car while riding a bike, resulting, amongst other things, in a head injury. In the wake of the accident, Paludan was subjected to a neuropsychological medical examination, which found that he had suffered some degree of brain damage and incurred a 25% degree of disability as a result. His family and friends would also observe a rather drastic change in his personality following the accident; most notably he became extremely short tempered and unable to handle conflicts in a constructive manner. Paludan himself would testify to this personality change in court several times. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, the timing of the accident and the personality change that followed it, seems to very much coincide with Paludan's increasing political radicalization from a rather milquetoast liberal towards extreme far right-wing views.

In Denmark
In 2008, Paludan would finish up his law degree after having interned at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In 2013 Paludan received a 5 year restraining order after several years of systematic stalking of a young man. Copenhagen Police founds that Paludan used multiple phones and SIM-cards to contact the young man continually. The party leader also contacted his victims family, friends and neighbors directly. He also contacted his family and friends places of employment. He was involved in a number of right-wing parties before founding his own, Stram Kurs (Hard Line), in 2017. The party’s platform includes a ban on Islam throughout Denmark. Paludan claims he is not Islamophobic or prejudiced against Muslim "honor culture," but rather objects to Islam because "every country that has it really goes to shit."

Paludan sponsored a contest, inspired by the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons, to draw the Muslim prophet Muhammad, posting on his Facebook page under a profile named "The Light of the Danes" cartoons of the "pædofeten" (a portmanteau word meaning "the pedophile prophet") engaged in sex acts with animals.

For the most part, Paludan has skirted the edge of Danish laws regarding freedom of expression without breaking them, and has garnered some support for himself and his party, but also criticism over how considerable police resources have been used to defend him in his public escapades, allegedly driving a wedge between police and immigrant communities. On April 5 th, 2019, however, a Danish municipal court found Paludan guilty of a violation of Section 266(b) of the Danish Criminal Code, often called the "racism paragraph," punishable by fine or up to two years’ imprisonment. Paludan is appealing the verdict.

Paludan's party did not fare as well as initial polling suggested in its inaugural June 2019 parliamentary election. In addition, he faced a scandal when it emerged Paludan had invited a man who was an alleged pedophile, and who had been fired as a coach by another team for "inappropriate conduct," to be a player in his soccer club for boys and young men, Copenhagen-based Danernes Soldater ("Soldiers of the Danes").

Paludan would face a couple of serious legal defeats in 2020. In March, the Danish Election Committee found him and Stram Kurs guilty of signature fraud, blocking the party from being eligible for election until 2022. In June, the Court of Næstved found him guilty of fourteen offenses, including racism, defamation, and reckless driving. Paludan was sentenced to one month of prison, two years of probation, as well as being disbarred from working as a lawyer for three years and a one year revocation of his driver's license.

In August 2021, the tabloid newspaper Ekstra Bladet published several stories on Paludan's online activities, most notably that he had repeatedly been involved in conversations of an overtly sexual nature with several minors on his personal Discord channel. The revelations of this activity led to Paludan getting reported to the police.

In Sweden
In 2022, Paludan managed to stir up in large part by announcing that Quran burnings would take place during his demonstrations in areas dense with Muslim immigrants. The resulting violence and damage to property surpassed that of started by other far-right activists in his name. He campaigned in the 2022 Swedish elections, with a Swedish branch of his party Stram Kurs – but both he and his party faded into obscurity as soon as media coverage moved on from focusing on the riots and their immediate aftermath. His change to focusing on Sweden, and plans for a Swedish political movement, followed on his failure to get into the Danish parliament; in Denmark, Paludan had come to be viewed as a has-been, and largely ignored following his legal setbacks there.