STOCKHOLM: A Swedish court on Tuesday sentenced a Swedish-Danish right-wing activist to four months in jail for inciting ethnic hatred at two 2022 protests that included the burning of copies of Qurans.
Rasmus Paludan provoked rioting in Sweden in 2022 when he went on a tour of the country and publicly burned copies of the Quran.
In August, prosecutors charged him with “agitation against an ethnic group” over a protest in the southern city of Malmo in April 2022, where he desecrated and set fire to the Muslim holy book while making disparaging comments about Muslims.
They also charged him with a second count of the same offence over another incident where he made derogatory remarks about Arabs and Africans.
The Malmo district court said it had found that Paludan “expressed contempt for Muslims, among others, at the gatherings and that his actions could not be excused as criticism of Islam or as political campaigning.”
“It is permissible to publicly criticise, for example, Islam and even Muslims, but the contempt for a group of people must clearly not exceed the limits of a relevant and responsible discourse,” judge Nicklas Soderberg said in a statement.
“In these cases, there was no such discourse. Instead, the statements were merely intended to defame and insult Muslims,” he added.
The court found Paludan guilty and handed down a four-month prison sentence.
Paludan denied the charges, arguing his protests were part of campaigning for his small party Stram Kurs (Hard Line), and his statements were just criticism of Islam.
He told news agency TT on Tuesday that he intended to appeal the verdict.
After his 2022 protest tour, Paludan later stoked international controversy when he set fire to a Quran outside Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm in January 2023.
The incident strained relations between the countries at a time when Turkey was holding up Sweden’s Nato bid.
Relations between Sweden and several Middle Eastern countries were further strained by a slew of protests staged by Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika - which also included desecrations of the Quran - in the summer of 2023.
Momika and co-protester Salwan Najem were also charged with inciting ethnic hatred in August this year, with a trial scheduled for January.
The Swedish government condemned the desecrations while noting the country’s constitutionally protected freedom of speech and assembly laws.
