Danish far-right party leader jailed for racism

Stram Kurs party leader sentenced to three months over anti-Muslim YouTube videos

Police arrive at Copenhagen City Court in Copenhagen on Thursday, December 12, 2019. Twenty people have been arrested and 20 addresses have been searched Wednesday, December 11, 2019 in connection with a major anti-terrorist campaign. Those arrested are being questioned now in the constitutional hearing. - Denmark OUT
 / AFP / Ritzau Scanpix / Philip Davali
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The leader of Danish far-right party Stram Kurs, lawyer Rasmus Paludan, was disbarred from the legal profession and sentenced to three months in jail on Thursday after being found guilty of racism.

Stram Kurs, which translates to Hard Line, was close to getting into parliament in the last election in Denmark with a policy based on banning Islam and deporting hundreds of thousands of Muslims.

Paludan first came to public attention in 2017 when he started making anti-Muslim YouTube videos.

His stunts have included publicly burning the Koran, sometimes wrapped in bacon, in what he said was a tribute to free speech.

Paludan was sentenced to 14 days of conditional imprisonment in 2019 for racist speech.

He will now face one month of imprisonment with two additional months of suspended sentence after being found guilty of 14 different accounts of racism, defamation and hazardous driving.

Additionally, as part of his sentence, Paludan was disbarred for three years, had his driver's licence suspended for one year and was fined around 40,000 Danish crowns (Dh2,211), the district court said in a statement.

Paludan denied all charges.