But after Dagens ETC, through a signing reporter, was allowed to accompany Rasmus Paludan – from the time he arrived to the Koran burning – it is unclear who actually took him to Sweden.
Those involved blame each other, as the newspaper Syre previously reported.
Everyone wants to create chaos, but no one wants to take responsibility.
Ran from the discussion
Through a reporter at the far-right Exakt24, I got the opportunity to meet Rasmus Paludan before the demonstration. I was there to observe, but as I am a Muslim woman who wears a veil, it is often impossible to be neutral in that situation. I got into a debate with Paludan. But just when things started to get interesting, Paludan ends the discussion, runs off with bodyguards and jumps into a police car.
Given the way he reacted to our meeting, I had high hopes for the demonstration that would be an hour or so later. But the whole thing was a fiasco. Around 200 people on site, many of them journalists. Every now and then someone would jump in. “Shall we have a discussion?” shouts one in the audience. Another screams something inaudible.
The demonstration permit was until 3 p.m., longer than the bored crowd could handle. We stood there frozen and waited for almost two hours for the Koran to be burned. Once the event took place, it was an incredible anticlimax.
Don’t want to answer about the plane ticket
Much had been built up before the demonstration. A counter-demonstration had been organized 50 meters away. But despite what could be an opportunity for the right to score political points, Chang Frick couldn’t refrain from talking about his central role in it all.
When the newspaper Syre called him, he then chose to blame everything on a reporter at Exakt24. The reporter in turn blames Frick. But what Frick did not mention in that conversation is that in addition to having paid the application fee for a demonstration permit, he also paid for Paludan’s flight from Copenhagen.
This has been confirmed to me by a very well informed source.
I call Frick and ask. He says:
– It is common knowledge that Jews hold the strings.
Then he hangs up.
Pressed mood between organizers
After Syre’s interview, Frick himself took to social media and confirmed that he paid for the demonstration permit. He has said to SVT:
– If I had secretly contributed a penny to some demonstration without reporting it, we would possibly have had a problem.
In addition, Frick claims that it is only about “300 bucks” and a “nonsense amount”.
Despite the fact that this was Frick’s project to begin with, he subsequently tries to downplay his role and shift the blame. Something that led to a tense atmosphere between him and his far-right collaborator.
The extreme right as an intermediary
The protesters never met each other, it never became the drama we thought. However, that tension also affected the organizers. When the demonstration that Frick was instrumental in organizing took place, he did not show up. Which meant that the demonstration instead ended up in the lap of his middlemen. Who also do not want to take responsibility for the demonstration.
It was initially an attempt to troll the political conversation. Instead, it led to a bad mood within parts of the right. At the same time, Frick wants to hide his far-right connections, as well as how he finances it all. It started with the demonstration permit. But in fact it is also the flight, where he used his far-right contacts as an intermediary.
Frick wanted this to be an anonymous media stunt.
When his involvement was revealed, he freaked out.
