WATCH: Danish Politician Rasmus Paludan put on Al-Qaeda Hit List (Exclusive Interview)

Head of the Danish Stram Kurs (Hard Line) party Rasmus Paludan has been placed on al-Qaeda’s “Hit List,” as revealed during an exclusive RAIR Foundation USA interview. The al-Qaeda “Hit List”, referred to also as a “Kill List” targets individuals for assassination.

This month, al Qaeda’s online magazine One Ummah posted a direct threat against Rasmus Paludan, who now joins the ranks of Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, Dutch politician Geert Wilders, Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks and the Danish cartoonist Kurt Vestergaard as potential targets.

The Hit List designation against Paludan prompted Denmark Security Services to upgrade his protection “somewhat,” he told RAIR, but he is not yet to the point where he needs a safe house, Paludan explained. Adding to concerns for Paludan’s safety was a little-reported terror attack this week at Charlie Hebdo.

The meat cleaver attack that wounded two journalists at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris this week was described as “clearly an act of Islamist terrorism” by the French interior minister Gerald Darmanin. The “main suspect” is of Pakistan origin, but several others have been arrested. A 33-year-old from Algeria and “five others” have also been detained.

Charlie Hebdo was singled out by al-Qaeda earlier this month after they defiantly re-published drawings of the Prophet Muhammad, which prompted a terror attack on Charlie Hebdo in 2015, where 12 people were murdered and 11 others injured.

When asked what prompted al-Qaeda to put the Stram Kurs party leader on their Kill List, Paludan said in part:

“As the leader of the Hard Line Party in Denmark, and as an editor of the Voice of Freedom, I’ve said things that are very critical of Islam. I’ve said – our politics in Denmark… Denmark is a Western Democracy – cannot live in peace with Islam because Islam can live in peace with nothing but Islam…”

Adding to Paludan’s notoriety would be the very close call (.02 percent) of votes his party received during the latest election to have a presence in Parliament. Also, Paludan received international attention in August after his supporters burned a Qur’an in Malmö, Sweden, which prompted Muslim-led riots, as reported at RAIR Foundation. As it turned out, Paludan was stopped at the Swedish border from entering, but his name was still associated with the Malmö event.

Swedish citizens also took notice, as discussed during a RAIR exclusive interview with Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlqvist.

In the wake of the Swedish riots, Paludan explains that there were “at least four countries” where officials “condemned the Qur’an burning,” and also mentioned Paludan’s name specifically. “Now that is a new level of international attention,” Paludan said. “Alot of Muslims live in those four countries”, he said.

Stram Kurs “doesn’t accept people who subscribe to racism or nazism,” Paludan told RAIR, “…or Islam or communism,” he continued. Despite his party’s stand against “violent ideologies,” Paludan “was sentenced to jail as well as fined this month in Copenhagen for the crime of ‘racism’ based on his remarks criticizing Islam,” as reported at RAIR in July.

Watch RAIR’s exclusive interview with Rasmus Paludan:

Paludan has dedicated his life to waking up Denmark to the threat of Islam. He and his supporters burn Qur’ans in Muslim-Majority areas. While his approach is unconventional and even distasteful, he is trying to prove a point: Muslims respond to perceived provocative actions with violence.

To this point, RAIR reported in December on a Qur’an burning initiated by Lars Thorsen, the leader of Stop Islamization of Norway (SIAN). The event led to a physical attack by Umer Ilyas, an Islamic witness to the event. Instead of the violence being condemned, Umer Ilyas was hailed as a hero.

Watch RAIR’s exclusive interview with Lena Andreassen, a photographer and SIAN member who captured the following image of rage:

Portland rioters burned “at least two Bibles” last month along with American flags. While the act received plenty of attention, Christians did not riot in response. This is just a fact, and despite the constant leftist narrative that all people in all lands in all of the world are peaceful by nature, Rasmus Paludan knows this first hand to be a lie.

As observed previously at RAIR, “Every freedom-loving country must ask whether sovereignty and freedom should allow unpopular thoughts and expressions, including the burning of the Qur’an or the Bible or the Torah.”