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Can It Happen Here? Sweden’s Hate Speech Laws Hateful—And Unequally Enforced (Vdare)

Thread ID: 15288 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2004-10-12

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Okiereddust [OP]

2004-10-12 15:30 | User Profile

Can It Happen Here? Sweden’s "Hate Speech" Laws Hateful—And Unequally Enforced





                      <b>By <a href="index.htm">Jared Taylor</a></b></p>

                    <font color="#990000">[<i>Recently 
                    by Jared Taylor:</i></font><i><font color="#990000">
                    </font>
                    <a href="http://www.vdare.com/taylor/japan.htm">The New York Times
                    Says Japan Needs Immigrants. The Japanese 
                    Politely Disagree</a></i><font color="#990000">]</font></p>
                    <font color="#990000">[See<i> also:
                    <a href="../letters/tl_100204.htm">Today’s Letter: </a></i>
                    </font><a href="../letters/tl_100204.htm">A Swedish 
                    Reader Says Sweden’s Pat Buchanan is…A Turkish 
                    Immigrant!</a><font color="#990000">]</font></p>
                    Sweden’s anti-hate speech laws have 
                    run amok, leading to a very worrying series of 
                    convictions—and non-convictions. More categories of 
                    people are entering the ranks of the <b>
                    <a href="http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-a=000a298a-sp00000000&sp-q=%22protected+classes%22&sp-p=all">
                    “protected classes”</a></b>—and recent cases have made 
                    it clear that these laws will not be enforced 
                    even-handedly. </p>
                    No prize for guessing who is
                    <a href="http://www.vdare.com/roberts/rights.htm">
                    protected</a> and
                    <a href="http://www.vdare.com/pb/spiral_of_silence.htm">
                    who is not.</a></p>
                    Only one recent atrocity has made 
                    the slightest ripple in the United States: the case of 
                    Ake Green, pastor of a Pentecostal church in the east 
                    coast town of Borghol. He was convicted in July of <b>
                    &quot;hate speech&quot;</b> against
                    <a href="http://www.vdare.com/francis/dirkhising_verdict.htm">
                    homosexuals</a>. His views were strongly and publicly 
                    expressed—<i>in a sermon</i>. He preached that 
                    homosexuality is
                    <a href="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39687">
                    <b>&quot;abnormal, a horrible cancerous tumor in the body of 
                    society,&quot;</b></a> and he supported this view with Bible 
                    verses. </p>
                    Pastor Green was charged with <b>&quot;<a href="http://www.vdare.com/francis/zeitgeist.htm">inciting 
                    hatred,</a>&quot;</b> and went on trial in June. He received 
                    a sentence of one month, though he is still free pending 
                    appeal. </p>
                    Public prosecutor Kjell Yngvesson 
                    explained the conviction: </p>
                    <p style="margin-left:0.5in"><b>&quot;One 
                    may have whatever
                    <a href="http://www.vdare.com/malkin/christian_soldier.htm">
                    religion</a> one wishes, but </b>[the sermon]<b> is an 
                    attack on all fronts against homosexuals. Collecting 
                    Bible </b>[verses]<b> on this topic as he does makes 
                    this hate speech.&quot; [</b><i><a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/132/12.0.html">No 
                    Free Speech in Preaching</a></i>, <i>Christianity Today</i>, 
                    August 9, 2004<b>]</b></p>
                    Sweden’s <b>&quot;hate speech&quot; </b>laws 
                    were
                    <a href="http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/6/112002c.asp">
                    modified in 2002</a> to include, for the first time, 
                    criminal sanctions against anyone who denounces 
                    homosexuals. The law
                    <a href="http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/2002/aug5/15.22.html">
                    explicitly included sermons</a> as speech subject to 
                    prosecution. Ministers from denominations in Sweden and 
                    abroad wrote in
                    <a href="http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_hat8.htm">
                    opposition to the new law,</a> but were ignored. </p>
                    Now that collecting Bible verses 
                    can officially be hate speech, can we
                    <a href="http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_09_21.shtml#1096312647">
                    expect</a> the Bible itself to be banned?</p>
                    Needless to say, Swedish laws 
                    prohibiting <b>&quot;hate speech&quot; </b>against racial 
                    minorities have been vigorously enforced. There have, 
                    for example, been a number of
                    <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/2004/09/003269print.html">
                    gang-rapes of Swedish women by Muslim immigrants.</a> 
                    But Swedes must be careful what they say about them. On 
                    May 25, neo-Nazi
                    <a href="http://www.nsfront.info/txt/EplVVVFuVVfvyyKuye.shtml">
                    Bjorn Bjorkqvist </a>was convicted and sentenced to two 
                    months in prison for writing,<b> &quot;I don’t think I am 
                    alone in feeling sick when reading about how Swedish 
                    girls are raped by immigrant hordes.&quot; [</b><i>&quot;Jag 
                    tror inte jag är ensam om att må dåligt när jag läser om 
                    hur svenska tjejer har våldtagits av invandrarhorder&quot;</i>]</p>
                    In another
                    <a href="http://www.amren.com/0312issue/0312issue.htm#cover">
                    recent case</a>, a man living in the Bunkeflo 
                    neighborhood of Malmo sent an e-mail message to public 
                    officials saying he believed most Arabs were criminals, 
                    and that he opposed subsidies for them to move into his 
                    neighborhood. <b>&quot;Bunkeflo,&quot; </b>he wrote, <b>&quot;was one 
                    of the last few refuges in Malmo where you could go out 
                    and not see
                    <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/003269.php">
                    Arabs loitering</a> all around you.&quot;</b> </p>
                    This man managed to avoid 
                    prison—but had to pay a fine of 10 percent of his 
                    pre-tax income. Given
                    <a href="http://www.libertyhaven.com/politicsandcurrentevents/healthcarewelfareorsocialsecurity/swedens.shtml">
                    Sweden’s high taxation rate</a>, this represented a 
                    figure of close to 20 percent of his actual income.</p>
                    But the most spectacular case so 
                    far—and one completely ignored by American media—is that 
                    of Swedish feminist
                    <a href="http://www.modernamuseet.se/v4/templates/template3.asp?lang=Eng&id=2316&bhcp=1">
                    Joanna Rytel</a>. <font color="#990000">[<i>Send her</i></font><i><font color="#990000">
                    </font>
                    <b>
                    <a href="mailto:joanna.rytel@konstfack.se">
                    mail</a></b></i><font color="#990000"><b>.</b>]</font></p>
                    Earlier this year, she wrote an 
                    article called<b> &quot;I Will Never Give Birth to a White 
                    Man,&quot; </b>for a major Swedish daily, <i>Aftonbladet</i>. 
                    [<i><a href="http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/debatt/story/0,2789,461311,00.html">Jag 
                    tänker aldrig föda en vit man,</a></i> April 11, 2004]</p>
                    Rytel explained why she hates white 
                    men—they are selfish, exploitative, vain, and 
                    sex-crazed—and just to make things clear, she added,<b> 
                    &quot;no white men, please… I just puke on them, thank you 
                    very much.&quot;</b>[&quot;<i>Dom 
                    spyr jag bara på, tack.</i>&quot;] </p>
                    She wrote that other than the 
                    women’s restroom, she can find peace only in the 
                    segregated women's prayer room in the
                    <a href="http://watch.windsofchange.net/themes_92.htm">
                    mosque</a> in
                    <a href="http://americanairlines.wcities.com/en/record/162,242378/98/index.html">
                    central Stockholm:</a> <b>&quot;At least Muslim men don’t 
                    mind that women have their own community in peace and 
                    quiet.&quot; </b>She added that she might let a white man 
                    follow her home, but only because <b>&quot;I can have someone 
                    to talk with all night long about my hatred towards 
                    white men.&quot;</b></p>
                    Members of the Swedish National 
                    Socialist Front—an admittedly neo-Nazi group—<a href="http://www.den-svenske.com/txt/EplkpuZFVybDApcaJk.shtml">called 
                    the article</a> to the attention of the Stockholm 
                    authorities. But they refused to indict Miss Rytel. In a 
                    letter dated April 19, prosecutor Göran Lambertz
                    <a href="http://www.den-svenske.com/txt/EplFylZyuuAGhEJyJM.shtml">
                    explained why:</a> </p>
                    <p style="margin-left:0.5in"><b>&quot;The 
                    purpose behind the law against incitement of ethnic 
                    hatred was to ensure legal protection for minority 
                    groups of different compositions and followers of 
                    different religions. Cases where people express 
                    themselves in a critical or derogatory way about men of 
                    ethnic Swedish background were not intended to be 
                    included in this law. Because of that, the content in 
                    this article cannot be considered incitement of ethnic 
                    hatred.&quot; <font color="#990000">[VDARE.COM NOTE:
                    </font>
                    </b><i><font color="#990000">Compare U.S. 
                    Civil Rights Commissioner Mary Frances Berry's </font>
                    <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=3478">
                    statement</a><font color="#990000"> that <b>&quot;Civil 
                    rights laws were not passed to protect the rights of 
                    white men and do not apply to them.&quot;</b></font></i><font color="#990000"><b>]</b></font></p>
                    So now it’s official: Swedes can go 
                    to jail if they say
                    <a href="http://www.vdare.com/mcconnell/mcconnell_barton.htm">
                    rude things</a> about the foreigners whom they have 
                    generously allowed into their country. But foreigners 
                    and anyone else may say whatever they like about Swedes.</p>
                    In the U.S., we are not in the same 
                    boat as Sweden—yet. We do not yet have laws that 
                    penalize expression of certain opinions. </p>
                    But we are unmistakably headed in 
                    that direction. The federal government and several 
                    states have passed <b>
                    <a href="http://www.vdare.com/francis/hate_not_reported.htm">
                    &quot;bias crime&quot;</a></b> laws that increase penalties if a 
                    crime was motivated, even in part, by racism, hatred of 
                    homosexuals, bias against the handicapped, etc. </p>
                    This is a first step towards laws 
                    that ban certain kinds of speech itself, because it 
                    means that certain thoughts and utterances—not acts—make 
                    some crimes more serious than others. </p>
                    Minority groups are pushing for 
                    laws like those in Sweden (and
                    <a href="http://www.amren.com/0103issue/0103issue.htm#cover">
                    many other European countries</a>). So far, American 
                    legislators have resisted these pressures, but probably 
                    only because they fear such laws would be struck down on 
                    First Amendment grounds. The general tenor of elite 
                    opinion in this country about <b>&quot;hate speech&quot;</b> laws 
                    is clear from the almost complete silence about events 
                    in Sweden, and about European speech codes in general.
                    </p>
                    For example, there was
                    <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg071602.asp">
                    tremendous criticism of the French</a> because of their 
                    unwillingness to go along with our invasion of Iraq. But 
                    did anyone taking cheap shots at the French ever point 
                    out that they don’t even have free speech? </p>
                    Even people who were straining for 
                    any reason at all to hate the French, didn’t consider 
                    their
                    <a href="http://www.vdare.com/gottfried/hysteria.htm">
                    draconian laws</a> against the expression of
                    <a href="http://www.vdare.com/misc/orland_silence.htm">
                    certain points</a> of view even worth mentioning.</p>
                    There is every reason to think our 
                    rulers would be happy if they had the legal means to 
                    shut down 
                    <a href="http://www.vdare.com/">
                    VDARE.com</a>, and other web sites and 
                    publications they find inconvenient. </p>
                    For now, the
                    <a href="http://www.vdare.com/francis/free_speech.htm">
                    Constitution</a> prevents this. But given the
                    <a href="http://www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/printmc20030708.shtml">
                    creativity of the Supreme Court</a>, and the utter 
                    indifference of our elites to <b>&quot;thought crime&quot; </b>
                    laws overseas, even the Constitution may some day fail 
                    to protect us. </p>
                    <i>
                    <font color="#990000">Jared Taylor (</font><a href="mailto:amren@amren.com">email</a><font color="#990000"> 
                    him) is editor of </font> 
                    <a href="http://amren.com/">
                    American Renaissance</a><font color="#990000">. He would like to thank an 
                    anonymous Swedish collaborator for help in researching 
                    this article.</font></i><!--mstheme--></font></td>
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Happy Hacker

2004-10-12 19:52 | User Profile

All this oppression if white people, along with the insufficient birthrate, is the fruit of paganism. Do any of you pagan WNs have something to say?