MALMO
\nA Swedish court sentenced on Tuesday a far-right politician to four months in jail for two counts of \u201cincitement against an ethnic group\u201d after making hateful comments at political rallies two years ago.
\nThe Danish-Swedish 42-year-old man, who was not named but has been identified by Swedish media as Rasmus Paludan, founder and head of the Danish nationalist anti-immigration party Stram Kurs, had been previously convicted and sentenced by a Danish court on a similar charge, the Malmo District Court said.
\nIn 2022, Paludan, founder and head of the Danish nationalist anti-immigration party Stram Kurs, made his offensive remarks directed at Muslims, Arabs and Africans during protests that he led in the southern city of Malmo in 2022, the court said. He also burned a copy of the Qur\u2019an, Islam\u2019s holy book, on at least one occasion. In response, a violent wave of riots swept the country.
\nSome observers also say Paludan\u2019s actions may have momentarily risked Sweden\u2019s chances of joining NATO after increasing political tensions with Turkiye. Sweden joined the alliance in March this year.
\nThe court in a statement Tuesday said Paludan\u2019s remarks against Muslims \u201ccannot be excused as criticism of Islam or as political campaign work.\u201d
\nChief Councilor Nicklas S\u00f6derberg, the court\u2019s chairman, said: \u201cIt is permitted to publicly make critical statements about, for example, Islam and also Muslims, but the disrespect of a group of people must not clearly cross the line for a factual and valid discussion.\u201d
\nHe added that during the Malmo rallies in April and September 2022 \u201cthere was no question of any such discussion,\u201d and that Paludan\u2019s public statements \u201conly amounted to insulting Muslims.\u201d
\nThe court took particular interest in whether the politician knew the protests were filmed and published on Facebook. Paludan had said that he wasn\u2019t aware of it but the district court disagreed and said his \u201cactions at the gatherings would be downright illogical if he didn\u2019t know about the publication on Facebook.\u201d
\nPaludan, a lawyer by profession, told Swedish media outlets that he wasn\u2019t surprised by the verdict.
\n\u201cIt was expected. We will appeal,\u201d the Swedish newspaper Expressen cited him as saying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MALMO A Swedish court sentenced on Tuesday a far-right politician to four months in jail for two counts of \u201cincitement against an ethnic group\u201d after making hateful comments at political rallies two years ago. The Danish-Swedish 42-year-old man, who was not named but has been identified by Swedish media as Rasmus Paludan, founder and head […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441884,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-441858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n