Politician Who Burned the Quran and Set the Islamic World On Fire: 'I have Proven Again, That People All Over The World, Are Not The Same' (Interview)

Fresh off of his Qur’an-burning protests in Sweden and Denmark, RAIR Foundation USA spoke with the politician and lawyer Rasmus Paludan. The Danish-Swedish politician made international headlines after Muslims and their leaders violently erupted in response to Paludan’s free-speech protest. In addition, Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, announced he would reject Sweden’s NATO application.

In his exclusive two-part interview with RAIR, Paludan discusses his objectives in burning the Qur’an, Turkey and the Islamic world’s reaction to a book burning, the lack of understanding of Islam among Western governments, and his future plans, among other things:

Background

In an act to preserve Sweden’s right to free speech, Paludan, who is the leader of the Danish Stram Kurs (Hard Line) party, burned a copy of the Qur’an. This time Paludan, who has held many prior Qur’an burning protests in the name of free speech, lit the book on fire adjacent to the Turkish Embassy behind riot fences and with police protection and bodyguards.

Before the demonstrations, Turkey demanded that Sweden stop Paludan and other groups that the Islamic country considers “terrorists.” Turkey defines anyone who disrespects its President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Islam’s holy books or prophet, as a “terrorist” and will be legally punished or physically harmed under that rubric. 

Despite Turkey’s warning, Sweden did not stop the demonstrations, which are constitutionally protected under Swedish law.

Following Paludan’s protests in Sweden, he began his Qur’an-burning tour in Denmark the following weekend. Paludan burned a Qur’an outside a mosque, the Turkish Embassy, and the Russian Embassy (Paludan discusses in his RAIR interview why he chose the Russian Embassy).

In reaction to Paludan’s peaceful protests, various Islamic governments and thousands of Muslims lodged threats, Allahu Akbar marches, and demands for deadly punishments.

Chechnya’s Muslim dictator Ramzan Kadyrov (also known as Vladimir Putin’s dog and “The Butcher of Chechnia”) and Chechen UFC fighter, living in Sweden, Khamzat Chimaev, expressed their anger and outrage over Paludan’s demonstrations. Pakistan, Kuwait, Iran, UAE, Qatar, Iran, Jordan, Egypt, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, among others, lodged threats and incited violence toward blasphemers.

ISIS has called on Muslims to attack Christians around the world, especially in Europe. The United States, France, and Germany have called on nationals in Turkey to be ‘vigilant’ and keep a ‘low profile.’ Sweden has increased its security throughout the country out of fear Muslims would launch attacks.

Erdoğan and other Muslim leaders and terrorist groups’ reactions are part of a much larger plan to have the West submit to Islamic laws. Their goals seem to work, as the Swedish police announced they rejected a planned Quran burning outside the Turkish Embassy, despite their decision having no legal support. 

Rasmus Paludan – Interview #1

Paludan discusses the protest in Sweden and why he demonstrated in front of the Turkish Embassy

Well, a week prior, some Kurdish opponents of Ertegun had put up an A doll portraying Aragon outside City Hall in Stockholm as a kind of protest against his regime in Turkey. I don’t support that statement, but I support the right to make that statement. And Erdogan responded by trying to intimidate the Swedish government into taking a stance against that statement. And so some Swedish people living in Sweden contacted me and suggested I might come and do a protest outside the Turkish Embassy to protest against the fact that Aragon was trying to mingle or interfere with the free speech situation in Sweden. 

So what I did was I went to Stockholm on the 21st of January 2023 to protest against Erdogan’s involvement in free speech questions in Sweden because the Constitution guarantees free speech in Sweden. And it’s not really an issue when it comes to an application to join NATO.

NATO is not a community of free-speech countries. NATO is not a cultural community. NATO is not a religious community. NATO is a defense alliance. So that is why I came to Stockholm. And, well, it turned out a bit more than anticipated.

Paludan on why protests erupted across the world

Well, it shows my point. And my point is that people in the world are not the same people in the world are different. And the Muslims in the world are completely different from Western Europeans and people of Western European descent. And it also shows their complete lack of understanding of what would offend me because they are burning pictures of me. And they are putting pictures of me on the ground and stepping on them. And they are burning the flags of Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland. And that doesn’t offend me at all. 

So I think they lack the understanding of the cultural differences as do many Western Europeans. And also, of course, I have received a great number of threats to kill me in various ways. Many of them are extremely graphic. That is something you would hardly ever see in Denmark. It’s very rare for Danes to send death threats to each other. And not over criticism of religion. But certainly, many Muslims apparently think that’s a good idea.

Paludan on the accusation of Russia financially backing his protest

Well, I can tell you that that is a complete lie. It’s a fabrication. I have no connection to Russia whatsoever. The reason that that lie started for two reasons; first of all, you have to pay a fee, which is roughly 40 Canadian dollars that you have to pay that fee in order to apply for permits for public gatherings. Because I live in Denmark, sending the money via international bank transfer takes a while. So I had a Swedish journalist pay the money from his bank account. When he started being a freelance journalist ten years ago, he did some work for Russia today as a freelance journalist ten years ago. So that is the connection that the fee for the protest was paid by a journalist who did, in fact, do freelance work for Russia Today 10 years ago.

Paludan on what he feels his protests have accomplished

Well, I don’t think that people of Islam and people, for instance, of Christianity, should live in the same place because that always results in Islam taking over. 

We know this, that is the history of Islam, that whenever Islam comes somewhere, it takes over by the sword. And by the change of demographics. 

And people in Denmark, Sweden, and other countries that have a large amount of Islam, but certainly still a minority – they claim that people from Muslim countries are just the same as people from Western European countries or from Central European countries, or from the United States, or Canada, or Australia. And I claim that they are not the same. I claim that they’re quite different. I claim that they have different values, completely different cultures, and certainly a different religion. And their basic concept of how to live in a society is completely alien to Western values. 

Now, I have claimed this for quite a while, and it seems a few people are convinced that this is a fact. I think the reaction to me burning my own book shows that I am right. Or in other words, it again shows that I am right. It has been shown many times by the people that do not like me that I am right. It was shown in April 2019 in Copenhagen, where certain people rioted for several days and burned police cars and other stuff. It was shown during Ramadan last year, 2022. And Sweden and several cities where many people threw stones at police officers in order to kill them. 

The reason for that was the police officers were out to protect my protests. So now it’s been shown again that people around the world and those are people of the Muslim faith. They are chanting in the streets that I should be killed. And they are chanting in the streets that people from Denmark and Sweden and the Netherlands and Switzerland should be killed. 

And they are planning, some of them, to attack the consulates of Sweden, the Netherlands, and Istanbul. So to claim that people all over the world are the same is simply not true. And I think that has been proven by me again.

Paludan discusses his plans for future action

Well, I mean, I have vowed that I would burn a Koran in front of the Turkish Embassy in Copenhagen every Friday until Erdogan let Sweden enter NATO. So, in fact, it’s the fault of Erdogan if I have to burn a Koran. 

Now, I didn’t get to do that last Friday because the Security Service pulled me away for some reason. But instead, I plan on doing it on Wednesday. And that is very interesting. There is a great concern in the United States that Sweden is now the target of potential terrorist attacks. And certainly, that is a concern. 

But what does a terrorist attack against Sweden by some Muslims prove, really? Does that terrorist attack prove that Muslims are the same as ethnic Europeans? Or does it prove that they are not?

Paludan addresses Muslims who say that it is not considered blasphemous unless he burns an official Arabic Qur’an

The one burned the week after the 28th, I believe, in Copenhagen, in front of a mosque, in front of the Russian residents, and in front of the Turkish Embassy were original Arabic Qur’ans. The one burned in Stockholm on the 21st was not; that was a translation. 

And I have to emphasize here that I can burn whatever book I like. So if I want to burn a real Arabic Qur’an, I’ll do that. If I have a translation handy, I’ll do that. And if people feel inclined not to kill others because the Koran I burned was a translation, that’s very pleasing. So I am glad if they think they should not commit terrorism because I only burned a translation. That is a comfort, so I don’t understand the point here. They are not entitled to commit terrorism and threaten people with with with killing, regardless of the kind of Quran I had burned. 

If I burned an Arabic original or a translation into French or English, any Qur’an does not entitle anybody to use that as a reason for committing a crime.

Rasmus Paludan – Interview #2

Paludan on Erdogan using his Free Speech Protest to help the struggling leader win a Presidental Election

I mean, first of all, of course, there is this whole NATO discussion in Sweden, and I can see why it would make sense from a neutral perspective to join NATO. On the other hand, the threat against Sweden is not from a foreign power. I think it’s from within because Sweden has imported a huge amount of Islamic terrorism. So to join NATO, because the fear of Russia is just not very realistic because Russia does not have the willpower or capacity to attack Sweden anytime within a reasonable timeframe. They are very, very busy in the Ukraine. And we’ve seen that maybe the Russian military was not quite what others had expected. 

But regardless of this, Erdogan, the president of Turkey, should not mix his domestic problems with the application of Sweden to join NATO. And that is what he’s doing. Because freedom of speech in Sweden, the burning of the Koran in Sweden, which is legal; there’s no blasphemy law in Sweden, like in the United States, there is no blasphemy law. You can criticize any religion; you can mock any religion; you can mock Jesus; you can mark Abraham; you can mark Mohammed, free speech. That is not the issue with joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Because it’s not a cultural or religious society, it’s a defense alliance. 

So I think when he protested against free speech in Sweden, I countered with the burning of a Koran on the 21st of January 2023 outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm, then he said, Sweden will not join NATO as long as you allow this. And I said, Well, in that case, let me burn a Koran every week in front of the Turkish Embassy in Copenhagen until Sweden joins NATO. I mean, there’s no doubt Sweden will join NATO. Eventually, this is just a fraud because he needs the backing of the religious Turks in order to better his chances of winning the presidential election in Turkey in May. After all, the inflation in Turkey is like 85%. So things are really bad in Turkey, and he might lose the election for the first time in many years. So he’s using my exercising freedom of speech and the Swedish application to join NATO for purely domestic political reasons.

Paludan on Islamic immigration and violent crime rates

Well, I mean, I don’t think any of the Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, keep a registration of people based on their faith. So that would be impossible, but you can look at people based on their national origin. So there would be statistics, at least in Denmark, concerning, for instance, people convicted of violent crimes from, say, Syria and Afghanistan, compared to the total amount of people from those countries in Denmark. That is possible. And of course, then you get the staggering numbers that people from Denmark is baseline 100. And if you look at violent crime, people from Vietnam are below. They’re actually less violent than Danes are. But if you look at people from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq, then the baseline –  the rating is a lot higher. It could reach up to like three or four 400. This means that that that that ethnic group, that nationality group, statistically gets sentenced for violent crimes three or four times as often as danger.

Well, I mean, I haven’t even mentioned the crime rate in Sweden. But obviously, Sweden has taken a lot more migrants from countries where the culture of religion is generally an enemy of Western Europe. So, of course, that means there are a lot more violent crimes in Sweden. Sweden is really a country soon, comparable to Somalia, with the highest amount percentage-wise of gunshot deaths in Europe. It is it is crazy. 

Paludan on why he held a demonstration in front of the Russian Embassy in Sweden

But there is one person who has Swedish citizenship who is from Chechnya [MMA fighter Khamzat Chimaev], and, of course, he’s not Swedish. He’s a he’s Chechnya. And he is a master of MMA, mixed martial arts, and wrestling. And he’s also a Muslim because that’s what people from Chechnya are. And so he was very upset about my political action. And therefore, he wrote that in the eyes of Muslims and himself, Rasmus is, in fact, a terrorist. 

Now, that’s very offensive, and somebody was a little cheeky and answered him. But, hmm, if we look at the recent terrorist perpetrators in Europe, do they look like Rasmus? Or do they look like you? But of course, that’s just a little funny. 

But I think that was quite unreasonable and offensive because he got into Sweden on false pretenses. He claimed asylum. But he has been seen in pictures with the Chechen president, the butcher [Ramzan] Kadyrov, which means there was no reason for him to flee from Chechnya. No reason at all. 

So I staged a protest in front of the Russian residents in Copenhagen, where I burned the Koran in response to the slurs from this wrestler from Chechnya and in response to the butcher of the Chesney and President Kadyrov.

Why do they call Chechnya’s Muslim dictator Ramzan Kadyrov the Butcher?

The president of Chechnya, and Chechnya is not a sovereign state; Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation. So it’s a country within Russia. And basically, he’s a dictator, and his population is extremely poor, but he gets money from Moscow, so he’s very wealthy. And he has personally participated in the torture and murder of many of his citizens, particularly homosexuals. He has a private prison with torture chambers in the backyard of his own palace. 

So not only does he order murdering and torture, he often participates. And we know this from people who have worked in the torture chambers and who have seen him participate in the torture of innocent citizens. 

If you’re not homosexual, because then you’re tortured and murdered. And if you’re lucky, and you somehow criticize the government, then you might catch a break if you’re not tortured and murdered, but instead that he also has concentration camps. But instead, you might be called into the national television program because every week, there’s a television program where different Chechnians are called in to publicly be shamed and apologize when they have criticized him or the government. 

So, for instance, a social worker had said she thought it was bad that there were so bad roads and that he kept all the money for himself. So she was called in on national television to apologize. But, of course, these people know they will be tortured and killed if they do not. 

And also, a 16-year-old boy had said something naughty, so He was also called in to be humiliated and to apologize on national television. So he is, in fact, a monster. He is probably the most monstrous evil person alive on Earth today. And he was very angry that I burned a Koran and mentioned him because he thought I was an amoral person without any morals and without any honor. This is coming from the butcher of Chechnya.

When will you be holding another Qur’an burning at the Turkish Embassy

The Copenhagen police denied me the right to burn the Koran in front of the Turkish Embassy. Anybody else could do it; I couldn’t do it. And it will probably be the same on Friday because there are quite a lot of terrorists looking for me now. So I think Sweden and Denmark are quite concerned, in general, about the threats from Muslim terrorists against our countries. But I have pronounced that on Friday, it will not necessarily be burning. Rather, I will use bacon, very clean meat, to clean out the Quran. Because if you smear raw bacon on the Quran, you will actually clean it and make it purer.

Read more of RAIR’s coverage on Rasmus Paludan and Qur’an burnings

• Threat Alert: ISIS Calls for Muslims to Attack Christians Around the World, Especially in Europe
• Islamic Terror Threat: Police Increase Security in Sweden
• Erdoğan’s Retaliation: Turkey Warns Against Travel to ‘Racist Islamophobic’ United States and Europe to Further Inflame Tensions
• London: In Response to Quran Burnings in Denmark and Sweden, Allahu Akbar Shouting Muslims Seize Control of Streets, Burn Flags, Declare Supremacy
• Quran Burning Update: United States, France, and Germany Call on Nationals in Turkey to be ‘Vigilant’ and Keep a ‘Low Profile’
• Politician’s Quran Burning Tour Rages On: I Will Burn This ‘Stupid Book’ as Long as Erdogan Blocks Sweden’s NATO Membership (Watch)
• Islamic Scheme: Muslim Leaders Capitalize on Quran Burning in Sweden, Pressures West to Adopt Blasphemy Laws
• President of Turkic World Youth Council: ‘If I Catch this Rascal who Burned the Quran, I will Burn Him Alive’ (Video)
• Muslims Erupts After Qur’an Burning: Turkey Rejects Sweden’s NATO Membership Unless It Submits to Islamic Blasphemy Laws
• Exclusive Interview: Politician Rasmus Paludan On Why He Burns Qur’ans and Sweden Went Up in Flames (Watch)
• Danish Politician Rasmus Paludan Fights Back: Sues Sweden Over His Unconstitutional Ban (Watch)
• WATCH: Danish Politician Rasmus Paludan put on Al-Qaeda Hit List (Exclusive Interview)
• Head Of Danish Political Party Rasmus Paludan Savagely Attacked By Muslims Yet Arrested For ‘Racism’ (Exclusive Interview)
• Sharia Denmark: Head of Political Party Rasmus Paludan Heads to Prison for Crime of ‘Racism’ (Watch)
• Quran Riots in Sweden: Islamic Migrants Violently Seize Control As Police Retreat (UPDATE: 3 Rioters Shot)
• Prime Minister of Pakistan: ‘The Day Will Come when Westerners Think Twice before Disrespecting the Prophet’