Published 15 August 2024 at 12.20
Domestic. The left-wing organization Civil Rights Defenders – which has received hundreds of millions of kroner in government grants – states that their police report against Rasmus Paludan led to the Koran-burner now being charged with crimes of opinion.
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On August 7, charges were brought against Rasmus Paludan for two cases of incitement against a ethnic group and one case of insult.
The left-wing organization Civil Rights Defenders – which is very heavily tax-financed by the government – now boasts of that they reported one of the events that form the basis of the prosecution, a Koran burning in Malmö.
– Of course, it is positive that the prosecutor shares our assessment, that this incident constitutes incitement against a group of people. We welcome that the issue of Koran burnings incited against ethnic groups is being tried in court. A conviction can be a guide for how similar cases should be assessed in the future, says John Stauffer, chief legal officer at Civil Rights Defenders, in a press release.
The report concerns the Koran burning Rasmus Paludan carried out on April 16, 2022 at Skånegården in Malmö.
Civil Rights Defenders believes that Paludan is guilty of “hate crimes”. It is not the isolated action of burning the Koran that the left-wing group considers decisive, but the context in which it was done: “the historical context and the purpose behind it”.
– It is important that the authorities do not see Paludan's Koran burnings and demonstrations as isolated events. They have taken place with a racist purpose, in connection with Ramadan, near mosques and in areas where many Muslims live, said John Stauffer in connection with the submission of the reports.
The question of whether Koran burnings can constitute incitement against an ethnic group has not been tried in a Swedish court before, which means that there is a lack of court practice.
– The most important thing is that the court takes a position on whether Koran burnings can constitute incitement against an ethnic group. A conviction would give minorities stronger protection against hate propaganda and, in our opinion, better comply with the international conventions that Sweden has signed to protect people against hate crimes, says John Stauffer.
The trial will take place on 14 until October 15.
About Civil Rights Defenders
Civil Rights Defenders is financed by the government via Sida and a number of other authorities and the official vision for the activity reads: “A world with democratic societies where we all enjoy civil and political rights.”
The organization was founded in 1982 as the Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights by the Jewish-Austrian human rights activist Gerald Nagler, who worked in Sweden.