A far-right journalist with links to the Kremlin has been accused of being behind a Koran-burning stunt that has infuriated Turkey and threatened Sweden’s attempt to join NATO.
Chang Frick, who previously worked for RT (formerly Russia Today) and sister agency Ruptly, paid the administrative fee for the demonstration outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm where far-right MP Rasmus Paludan torched the holy book.
Controversial Danish far-right MP Rasmus Paludan, also a Swedish citizen, burns the Koran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm last weekend. Credit:Getty
The involvement of the 39-year-old has raised fears that Russia may have plotted the incident to disrupt the expansion of NATO. Frick’s Twitter feed includes pictures of him posing in a Putin T-shirt and showing off a Putin calendar.
An effigy of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was strung from a lamppost a week earlier. Turkey also wants Sweden to extradite people it says are militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
svendburner on January 27th, 2023 at 06:11 UTC »
Paludan is not a Danish MP, as stated in the article. He got 379 votes in the last election.
Edit to add: He got 79 votes in the Swedish election (dual citizen), so they might as well call him a Swedish MP.
His party got more votes in the 2019 Danish election, but still not enough to get elected.
It was later revealed that he had cheated on the requirements to get his party electable, so they were barred from retrying for a period, which meant his party was not electable for the 2022 election - So he just went as himself.
PreOrderingLurker on January 27th, 2023 at 02:44 UTC »
Accordning to a Swedish newspaper, Paludan intends to burn a Quran every friday until Sweden is accepted into NATO.
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/y6Oz9A/rasmus-paludans-lofte-till-erdogan-branner-en-koran-i-veckan-utanfor-ambassaden
Madhavaz on January 27th, 2023 at 02:12 UTC »
Did anyone think it was a coincidence that a Koran was burned and an effigy of Erdogan a week before?