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Danish far-Right extremist Rasmus Paludan to stand in Swedish election

TT/The Local
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Danish far-Right extremist Rasmus Paludan to stand in Swedish election
Rasmus Paludan at a demonstration in Malmö during the Easter weekend. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Rasmus Paludan and his right-wing extremist party Stram Kurs ("Hard Line") will be standing in Sweden's parliamentary election in September this year, Sweden's election authority has confirmed.

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In 2019, Paludan stood in Danish parliamentary elections, achieving only 1.8 percent of the vote. Under Denmark's proportional representation system, parties must achieve at least two percent of the vote in order to enter the Danish parliament.

In Sweden, you must be a Swedish citizen in order to be elected to parliament. Paludan's father is Swedish, and he applied for and was granted Swedish citizenship in 2020.

In order to enter the Swedish parliament, Paludan must win at least for percent of the vote in the upcoming election.

To put that in to perspective, current parliamentary parties the Liberals and the Green Party are currently polling under four percent, and are thereby at risk of losing their representatives in the Swedish Riksdag.

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Paludan, who in recent days has been travelling around Sweden burning the Koran, the Muslim holy book, has described these visits as an "election tour".

Over the Easter weekend, which coincided this year with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, he visited, or planned to visit, Linköping, Norrköping, Örebro, Landskrona, Malmö and the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby to hold "demonstrations", setting fire to the Koran in order to provoke people living in these areas.

Paludan's demonstrations resulted in riots involving vandalism and violence aimed primarily at police.

At least 40 people have been arrested or charged, many of whom were minors. In total, 26 police officers have been injured.

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lorna.fletcher 2022/04/21 08:56
‘Paludan’s demonstrations resulted in riots involving vandalism and violence aimed primarily at police’ could be misleading. Wasn’t it those protesting against him that rioted? I don’t agree with him but it should be made clear who did what and not left to people to assume that the demonstrators rioted.

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