Rasmus Paludan

As of September 2022, Paludan will be studying theology at the University of Copenhagen.

In April 2022, Paludan again organised and announced several demonstrations in major Swedish cities, where he burned or said that he would burn the Quran. This led to rioting by counterprotesters, including destruction of private and public property and attacks on police. Riots also erupted in the lead-up to his demonstration.

In August 2021, it was revealed through an investigation by Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet that Paludan through his Discord server had been talking about hardcore fetish sex with minors ranging in age from 13 to 17. Paludan did not deny the claims, but denied any wrongdoings, stating that he did not know how old the people he was talking to were and that the boys or the moderators in the chat would have stopped him if he had overstepped any boundaries.

In 2021, a Danish court found Rasmus Paludan guilty of racism and defamation. He was given a suspended sentence.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Paludan founded the Stram Kurs party in 2017 which present strong extremist views on Islam and non-western immigration. Paludan is extremely opposed to non-Western immigration and Islam's presence in Denmark. He is well known for his numerous happenings 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.

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 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.

In January 2013, Paludan was given a 5-year restraining order, forbidding him from contacting a then-24-year-old man whom he had been stalking since 2010, when they both started at the University of Copenhagen. Despite the restraining order, the harassment continued until December 2013. In 2015, Paludan was fined for offending the police officer who handled the stalking case.

Rasmus Paludan (born 2 January 1982) is a Danish-Swedish politician and lawyer. He is the leader of the far-right Danish political party Stram Kurs ("Straight Course" or "Hard Line"), which he founded in 2017. Paludan has held several events in which a Quran was burned, leading to counter-protests, some marked by violence and burning of cars.