Rasmus Paludan

Rasmus Paludan (born 2 January 1982) is a Danish-Swedish politician and lawyer, who is the founder and leader of the right-wing political party Stram Kurs.

Paludan has become known for his highly controversial views, including that Islam should be banned and that non-Western citizens should be deported from Denmark.

He is considered by political scientists and media to be far-right and right-wing extremist.

Paludan is known for his Islam-critical events and demonstrations, which are often held in urban areas with many Muslim immigrants, initially in Denmark.

During the demonstrations, he has called the Quran "the big book of whores" and Islam "gay Islam", just as he has burned, spat on and thrown the Quran and encouraged people to urinate on it.

Paludan has particularly attracted attention by recording videos of his demonstrations and uploading them to the Stram Kurs party's YouTube channel.

Paludan's mother married his Swedish father, Tomas Polvall, in 1989 thereby acquiring the right to Swedish citizenship.

Paludan became a student at Helsingør Gymnasium in 2000, where he was student council chairman for a period.

After high school he served his military service.

Paludan began studying law in 2001 and in 2008 became a Master of Law from the University of Copenhagen.

Paludan had the year's ninth highest grade point average after his Bachelor of Arts.

Paludan has been a member of the Danish Social Liberal Youth and, according to the news agency Ritzau sat on the organisation's main board in 2003, which has however been publicly denied by Rasmus Paludan himself, who stated that he was only on its board in Copenhagen.

During his studies, he worked for Kromann Reumert in 2004 and the following year was an intern with the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

However, a road accident in 2005 delayed his law studies.

Paludan's road accident in 2005, in which he suffered a brain injury, has been claimed in court documents to have resulted in subsequent significant personality changes, including lack of ability to tolerate others' mistakes, depression, as well as a 25 percent loss of work ability.

Paludan's father however rejects that the accident caused significant mental changes in his son.

In 2009, Paludan ran for the European Parliament for the June Movement without being elected.

Paludan has also been a member of the Danish Social Liberal Party and in 2010 of Venstre.

In 2014, Paludan was commissioned as a lawyer with the right to appear before the High Court.

From 2015 to 2018, Paludan was employed as an external lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Copenhagen, where several students complained to the student management about Paludan's teaching and behaviour.

Both siblings have publicly distanced themselves from Rasmus Paludan's political messages and methods.

Paludan has stated that those who know him know that he is "out of category".

Paludan has described himself as principled and added that he is so to such an extent that it has probably limited his circle of friends.

In 2016 Paludan started attending meetings of the International Free Press Society.

In November 2016, he was appointed as a member of the Lars Vilks Committee.

In January 2017, Paludan said that he was a member of and a lawyer for the Islam-critical association For Frihed (formerly Pegida Denmark).

Paludan has on several occasions given speeches at the association's events and participated in the association's demonstrations.

In January 2017, Paludan said that he had been a member of the political party New Right since September 2016.

In 2019, he was sentenced to 14 days conditional imprisonment for violating the Danish racism clause.

In 2021 he was found guilty of racist and derogatory statements, and received a conditional sentence of 3 months in prison and had to pay compensation to the offended, a Somali woman.

Paludan is under constant police protection due to threats against him for his activism.

Paludan was born in North Zealand and grew up in Hornbæk.

Rasmus Paludan is the brother of poet Tine Paludan and writer Martin Paludan, who is a former social media manager for The Alternative.

In 2020, the channel was shut down by YouTube, citing that their guidelines prohibit harassment and hate speech directed at individuals or groups based on race or religion.

His burnings of the Quran led to rioting in Sweden in 2022, and burnings in 2023 were said to have contributed to "an enormous global controversy".

As a lawyer, Paludan has been a defender in several cases with the press's attention.

Paludan has also been involved in a number of lawsuits and legal disputes.

In 2020, Paludan founded the Church of Saint James the Moor-slayer with himself as Archbishop, named after the Spanish legendary figure James Matamoros who helped the Christians conquer the Muslim Moors.

He also attempted to register the church in Sweden in 2022.

In August 2022, Paludan was accepted to study theology at the University of Copenhagen, but stated that he did not want to become a priest of the Church of Denmark, since he is already Archbishop of his own church.