Finland's top prosecutor aims to impose clear legal boundaries on hate speech found on the Internet and to provide police with stricter guidelines, his office said Tuesday.
"The goal is to deal with those possibly problematic debates the police encounters" in online blogs and comments, Deputy Attorney General Jorma Kalske told AFP.
He added police encountered a "relatively substantial" amount of online material that could be considered hate speech and incitement against certain population or religious groups.
"It is a matter of drawing a line between voicing political opinions, expressing freedom of speech and what is called in colloquial language hate speech, which in criminal law terms is incitement to hostility against a population group," he said.
Kalske noted the anti-immigration discourse from some politicians could be seen as "incitement against a population or ethnic group or religion."
In Finland, hate speech is today punishable with a fine or up to two years in prison, but no one has ever been incarcerated under the country's hate speech legislation.
The Attorney General's office is planning to present a new proposal clearing up what constitutes a hate speech crime in an online context within the next couple of months. It is also considering heavier punishment for serial offenders.
News of the proposal comes on the heels of the deadly twin attacks in Norway on July 22, which sent shock waves through Northern Europe.
The perpetrator of the attacks, Anders Behring Breivik, a 32-year-old Norwegian rightwing extremist, had written in a manifesto posted online before the attacks that he was inspired by different far-right bloggers, including far-right Finnish parliamentarian Jussi Halla-Aho.
Behring Breivik first bombed government offices in Oslo, killing eight people, before going on a shooting rampage on the nearby island of Utoeya where the ruling Labour Party's youth wing was hosting a summer camp, killing another 69, many of them teenagers.
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freethinking
1.6 / 5 (7) Aug 09, 2011Hate speech is a progressive code word for - Say anything bad about a protected group, even if it is true, and you can go to jail.
Will those that lie about what Jussi Halla-Aho believes be prosecuted? Will I be arrested in Finland for hate speach for stating people should tell the truth about Jussi Halla-Aho?
ryggesogn2
1.7 / 5 (6) Aug 09, 2011It doesnt deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do"
http://www.politi...rty.html
Of course 'legitimate' will be defined by the 'progressives'.
Vendicar_Decarian
1.2 / 5 (5) Aug 10, 2011Vendicar_Decarian
1 / 5 (5) Aug 10, 2011America's will be particularly violent with Conservative and Libertarian blood being freely spattered onto the cement walls of the nearest buildings.
Viva La Revolution.
ryggesogn2
2 / 5 (4) Aug 10, 2011It is the 'progressive' that attempts to use state power to disarm their victims.
frenchie
3 / 5 (2) Aug 10, 2011You're all crazy on this forum.
You people are all crazy cooks.
Finally marjon, not all people deserve an equal voice no.
ryggesogn2
1.8 / 5 (5) Aug 10, 2011Frenchie, Fascism is socialism.
It is the 'progressive' in the US that promotes speech codes on campus, in the workplace, in public schools, and pushes for 'hate' speech legislation wherever they can.
freethinking
2.1 / 5 (7) Aug 10, 2011Interesting to note it is progressives that are rioting not conservatives, yet progressives claim conservatives are the violent ones.
It is progressives that love to use hate speech, then use hate speech laws to silence conservative, while the conservatives who do not use hate speech are the ones that are against hate speech laws.
Progressives incite direct violence yet claim conservatives do, when they don't
http://www.americ...ard.html
ryggesogn2
2.1 / 5 (7) Aug 10, 2011"If you live a normal life of absolute futility, which we can assume most of this weeks rioters do, excitement of any kind is welcome. The people who wrecked swathes of property, burned vehicles and terrorised communities have no moral compass to make them susceptible to guilt or shame.
Most have no jobs to go to or exams they might pass. They know no family role models, for most live in homes in which the father is unemployed, or from which he has decamped."
Read more: http://www.dailym...UfxfhEbE
The movie, A Clockwork Orange comes to mind.