“My assessment is that there are sufficient grounds to bring charges, and now the district court will consider the case,” senior prosecutor Adrien Combier-Hogg said.
Paludan told Dagens Nyheter that he “hasn’t heard anything about the indictment.” He added that he “denies [committing] any crime.”
Burning the Quran is extremely offensive to Muslims, as the holy book is considered the word of God. Denmark banned Quran burning in December after more than 500 incidents took place in 2023.
Paludan, the chairman of the Danish and Swedish far-right political party Hard Line, has repeatedly set copies of the Quran on fire in Stockholm and Copenhagen, sparking outrage in Muslim-majority countries. In Iraq, hundreds stormed the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad in protest against a planned Quran burning.
In April 2022, a violent wave of riots swept across Sweden in response to rallies organized by Paludan during which he planned to burn the Quran. Burnings later that summer were believed to have inspired an Islamist terrorist to kill a pair of Swedish tourists in Brussels, where they had traveled to attend a football match. Authorities later said the gunman specifically targeted the duo because they were Swedish.
Paludan’s Quran burnings also briefly jeopardized Sweden’s bid to join NATO, as such incidents exacerbated the country’s already tense relationship with Turkey. Sweden finally joined the defense alliance in January.
