Published on Nov 22, 2015
Swedish politician fined for hate speech against Islam
http://chersonandmolschky.com/2014/05...
Sweden Democrat Party politician Michael Hess of Karlskrona was sentenced today (May 8, 2014) to a fine for hate speech after having connected the religion of Islam with rape.
According to the judgment, the statement is not part of a “factual and authoritative discussion” and it thus it does not matter whether or not the statement is true.
Sweden is typically depicted as a liberal paradise, an evolved and open-minded society where tolerance and equality define public life. No one believes this more, it seems, than the Swedish authorities. The official website for Sweden even makes the proud claim that ‘openness shapes Swedish society’. This image of Sweden as tolerant and liberal suggests it is a nation that take freedoms seriously, which appreciates the importance of liberty. This is certainly what I was led to believe when I moved here six months ago.
But take a closer look at Swedish society and a different picture emerges. It is an image of a nation in which freedom of speech comes with numerous caveats, a society in which the reprimand ‘you can’t say that’ is on the edge of every conversation. Freedom of speech is all well and good, it seems, so long as it conforms to the expectations of polite society.
Sweden’s war on hate speech
According to Sweden’s constitution, every person has the right to communicate and express thoughts, opinions and feelings in speech, writing, imagery or otherwise. Equally, people also have the right to ‘receive any information or utterances’. The right to express and receive thoughts, opinions and feelings is an important right. And it is also important that it has been enshrined in Sweden’s constitution.
But, at the same time, it is a right that is being neutralised by Sweden’s hate and defamation laws.
The key piece of hate-speech legislation in Sweden is the ‘hets mot folksgrupp’ law, which proscribes ‘agitation against a national or ethnic group’. First created in 1948, it was presented as a response to the anti-Semitic propaganda of the 1930s and 1940s. (The first person to be convicted under the law was Einar Ã…berg, a well-known anti-Semite regarded by some as the reason the law was introduced in the first place.)
http://chersonandmolschky.com/2014/05...
Sweden Democrat Party politician Michael Hess of Karlskrona was sentenced today (May 8, 2014) to a fine for hate speech after having connected the religion of Islam with rape.
According to the judgment, the statement is not part of a “factual and authoritative discussion” and it thus it does not matter whether or not the statement is true.
Sweden is typically depicted as a liberal paradise, an evolved and open-minded society where tolerance and equality define public life. No one believes this more, it seems, than the Swedish authorities. The official website for Sweden even makes the proud claim that ‘openness shapes Swedish society’. This image of Sweden as tolerant and liberal suggests it is a nation that take freedoms seriously, which appreciates the importance of liberty. This is certainly what I was led to believe when I moved here six months ago.
But take a closer look at Swedish society and a different picture emerges. It is an image of a nation in which freedom of speech comes with numerous caveats, a society in which the reprimand ‘you can’t say that’ is on the edge of every conversation. Freedom of speech is all well and good, it seems, so long as it conforms to the expectations of polite society.
Sweden’s war on hate speech
According to Sweden’s constitution, every person has the right to communicate and express thoughts, opinions and feelings in speech, writing, imagery or otherwise. Equally, people also have the right to ‘receive any information or utterances’. The right to express and receive thoughts, opinions and feelings is an important right. And it is also important that it has been enshrined in Sweden’s constitution.
But, at the same time, it is a right that is being neutralised by Sweden’s hate and defamation laws.
The key piece of hate-speech legislation in Sweden is the ‘hets mot folksgrupp’ law, which proscribes ‘agitation against a national or ethnic group’. First created in 1948, it was presented as a response to the anti-Semitic propaganda of the 1930s and 1940s. (The first person to be convicted under the law was Einar Ã…berg, a well-known anti-Semite regarded by some as the reason the law was introduced in the first place.)
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