{"id":97772,"date":"2017-09-04T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T11:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=97772"},"modified":"2017-09-02T10:02:32","modified_gmt":"2017-09-02T09:02:32","slug":"in-europe-hate-speech-laws-are-often-used-to-suppress-and-punish-left-wing-viewpoints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/09\/in-europe-hate-speech-laws-are-often-used-to-suppress-and-punish-left-wing-viewpoints\/","title":{"rendered":"In Europe, Hate Speech Laws Are Often Used to Suppress and Punish Left-Wing Viewpoints"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

As part of the national week organized by the group \u201cJust and Sustainable Peace between Israelis and Palestinians.\u201d More than 150 people gathered in Lyon, on the banks of Rhones, to show their solidarity with the Palestinian people, for the defense of freedoms, the right to boycott Israeli products, the end of the occupation, and the requirement of sanctions, as long as Israel is violating international law. Photo: Konrad K.\/Sipa\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

29 Aug 2017 – <\/em>Terrorist attacks, and the emotions they spawn, almost always prompt calls for fundamental legal rights to be curtailed\u00a0in the name of preventing future attacks. The formula by now is routine: The victims of the horrific violence are held up as proof that there must be restrictions on advocating whatever\u00a0ideology motivated the killer to act.<\/p>\n

In 2006, after a series of attacks carried out by Muslims, Republican\u00a0Newt Gingrich called for<\/a> \u201ca serious debate about the First Amendment\u201d so that \u201cthose who would fight outside the rules of law, those who would use weapons of mass destruction, and those who would target civilians are, in fact, subject to a totally different set of rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Of Islamic radicals, the former U.S. speaker of the House\u00a0argued that they do not believe in the Constitution or free speech, and the U.S. should thus \u201cuse every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people.\u201d In an essay<\/a> defending his remarks, Gingrich argued that \u201cfree speech should not be an acceptable cover for people who are planning to kill other people who have inalienable rights of their own,\u201d adding that \u201cthe fact is not all speech is permitted under the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The white nationalist violence at Charlottesville has led to similar arguments. While polling data<\/a> and anecdotal evidence<\/a> have long shown an erosion in the\u00a0belief in free speech among younger Americans, including\u00a0those who identify as liberals or leftists, Charlottesville has prompted a full-scale debate about the merits of preserving\u00a0the right to express \u201chate speech,\u201d however that might be defined.<\/p>\n

An excellent Guardian article<\/a>\u00a0on Monday by Julia Carrie Wong examines the implications of the growing liberal\/left\u00a0desire for \u201chate speech\u201d to be restricted \u2014 either by the state\u00a0wielding the power of \u201chate speech\u201d laws or by private tech executives prohibiting\u00a0the use of their platforms to disseminate what they regard as \u201chateful ideas.\u201d As Wong correctly notes, \u201cMany Americans\u00a0increasingly favor<\/a>\u00a0European-style limitations on hate speech.\u201d Numerous op-eds<\/a> and blog<\/a>posts<\/a> have been published recently explicitly calling for such restrictions. As a result, it is well worth examining how those \u201cEuropean-style limitations\u201d operate in practice, and against whom they are applied.<\/p>\n

Many Americans who\u00a0long for Europe\u2019s hate speech restrictions assume that those laws are used to outlaw and punish expression of the bigoted ideas they most hate: racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, misogyny. Often, such laws are used that way. There are numerous cases in western Europe and Canada of far-right extremists being arrested, fined, or even jailed for publicly spouting that type of overt bigotry.<\/p>\n

But hate speech restrictions are used in those countries to suppress, outlaw, and punish more than far-right bigotry. Those laws\u00a0have frequently been used to constrain and sanction a wide range of political views that\u00a0many left-wing\u00a0censorship advocates would never dream could be deemed \u201chateful,\u201d and even against opinions which\u00a0many of them likely\u00a0share.<\/p>\n

France is probably the most extreme case of hate speech laws being abused in this manner. In 2015, France\u2019s highest court upheld the criminal conviction<\/a> of 12 pro-Palestinian activists for violating restrictions against hate speech. Their crime? Wearing T-shirts that advocated a boycott of Israel \u2014 \u201cLong live Palestine, boycott Israel,\u201d the shirts read \u2014 which, the court\u00a0ruled, violated French law that \u201cprescribes imprisonment or a fine of up to $50,000 for parties that \u2018provoke discrimination, hatred or violence toward a person or group of people on grounds of their origin, their belonging or their not belonging to an ethnic group, a nation, a race or a certain religion.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As we reported at the time<\/a>,\u00a0France\u2019s use of hate speech laws to outlaw activism against Israeli policy \u2014 on the grounds that it constitutes \u201canti-Semitism\u201d and hatred against people for their national origin \u2014 is part of a worldwide trend. In May of last year, Canada\u2019s then-conservative government threatened to use<\/a>\u00a0the nation\u2019s rigorous hate speech laws to prosecute Israel boycott advocates\u00a0on the ground<\/a> that such activism is\u00a0\u201cthe new face of anti-Semitism.\u201d As Haaretz reported<\/a> about the French prosecutions: \u201cPro-Israel activists in neighboring Belgium are pushing for a similar law to Lellouche, hoping it might also put a dent in BDS activities in that country.\u201d Other French activists have been convicted of \u201cinciting racial hatred\u201d<\/a> for applying boycott stickers to vegetables imported from Israel.<\/p>\n

There can be little question that if the power to ban \u201chate speech\u201d were\u00a0vested in the hands of U.S. officials or courts, the same thing would happen. It is a virtually unquestioned bipartisan consensus that advocating a boycott of Israel constitutes hatred and anti-Semitism. In her 2016 AIPAC speech, Hillary Clinton cited\u00a0the\u00a0boycott movement<\/a> as evidence that \u201canti-Semitism is on the rise across the world.\u201d A group of bipartisan U.S. legislators are currently sponsoring legislation to make it illegal for businesses to\u00a0participate in any international boycott of Israel, a bill that the American Civil Liberties Union says<\/a> can be used to criminalize advocacy of boycotts.<\/p>\n

Pro-Israel students\u00a0often claim<\/a> that advocating a boycott of Israel is tantamount to campus \u201cbullying\u201d and anti-Semitism. Campus censorship principles in the U.S. are most often applied<\/a> against pro-Palestinian groups<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Does anyone doubt that high on the list of \u201chate speech\u201d for many U.S. officials, judges, and functionaries would be groups, such as Black Lives Matter and antifa, far-left groups that fight against\u00a0white supremacists? Some GOP-controlled state legislatures are already arguing<\/a> that BLM\u00a0should be officially classified as a \u201chate group.\u201d Beyond what many officials say is the group\u2019s hatred for police officers, they also \u201cpoint to its platform that accuses Israel of carrying out genocide against the Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the UK, \u201chate speech\u201d has come to include anyone expressing virulent criticism of UK soldiers fighting in war. In 2012, a British Muslim teenager, Azhar Ahmed, was arrested for committing<\/a> a \u201cracially aggravated public order offence.\u201d\u00a0His crime? After British soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, he cited on his Facebook page the countless innocent Afghans killed by British soldiers and wrote: \u201cAll soldiers should DIE & go to HELL! THE LOWLIFE F*****N SCUM! gotta problem go cry at your soldiers grave & wish him hell because that where he is going.\u201d<\/p>\n

The police spokesperson justifying the teenager\u2019s\u00a0arrest said: \u201cHe didn\u2019t make his point very well, and that is why he has landed himself in bother.\u201d So those of you craving European-style hate speech laws want to empower the police <\/em>\u2014 and then judges \u2014 to decide when a point is sufficiently ill-made and offensive to justify arrest.\u00a0Ahmed escaped a jail term, and was ultimately given \u201cmerely\u201d a fine and community service, but only<\/a> \u201cbecause he quickly took down his unpleasant posting and tried to apologise to those he offended.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Writing about the Ahmed case in The Independent, journalist Jerome Taylor documented how<\/a> \u201chate speech\u201d laws in the UK have\u00a0rapidly expanded to include any opinions deemed upsetting: \u201cIn recent years we have increasingly begun to criminalise the offensive, a precedent that should be deeply worrying for anyone who cares about the importance of free speech.\u201d In The Guardian, Richard Seymour went further<\/a> and said that \u201cAhmed is\u00a0the latest victim\u00a0of a concerted effort to redefine racism as \u2018anything that could conceivably offend white people.’\u201d<\/p>\n

This is how hate speech laws are used in virtually every country in which they exist: not only to punish the types of right-wing bigotry that\u00a0many advocates believe will be\u00a0suppressed, but also a wide range of views that many on the left believe should be permissible, if\u00a0not outright accepted. Of course<\/em> that\u2019s true: Ultimately, what constitutes \u201chate speech\u201d will be decided by majorities, which means that it is\u00a0minority views that are vulnerable to suppression.<\/p>\n

In 2010, a\u00a0militant atheist was given a six-month suspended sentence for leaving anti-Christian and anti-Islam fliers in a religious room of the Liverpool airport; according to the BBC<\/a>, \u201cjurors found him guilty of causing religiously aggravated intentional harassment.\u201d In Singapore, \u201chate speech\u201d laws are routinely used<\/a> to punish human rights activists\u00a0who criticize Christianity, or Muslims who have defended or promoted sermons from imams deemed too critical of other religions. Cases in Turkey are common<\/a> where citizens have been prosecuted under hate speech laws for criticizing government officials or the military. Radical imams are prosecuted<\/a> in Europe if they are too strident in their support for sharia law or their defense of violence against western aggression.<\/p>\n

A leftist activist in France was convicted and fined<\/a> for insulting former French President Nicolas Sarkozy by holding a sign that said \u201cget lost, jerk\u201d; ironically, those were the exact words Sarkozy himself uttered\u00a0when a citizen refused to shake his hand at a public fair (the European Court of Human Rights ultimately overturned the Frenchman\u2019s conviction). In 2013, as Salon\u2019s Nico Lang reported<\/a>, \u201cjudges fined Laure Pora, the former head of the Paris chapter of ACT UP, 2,300 euros for using the term [\u201chomophobe\u201d] during a 2013 demonstration against the pro-life group Lejeune Foundation and La Manif Pour Tous.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2015 report from Freedom House documented<\/a> that \u201cinternet freedom around the world has declined for the fifth consecutive year, with more governments censoring information of public interest.\u201d Specifically, \u201cstate authorities have also jailed more users for their online writings.\u201d The report documented that free speech protections are declining in roughly half the countries they surveyed. \u201cThe most significant declines occurred in Libya, Ukraine, and France,\u201d where \u201cstanding declined primarily due to problematic policies adopted in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack, such as restrictions on content that could be seen as \u2018apology for terrorism,\u2019 prosecutions of users, and significantly increased surveillance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the German government ordered an influential left-wing website shut down<\/a> on the ground that it \u201cstirred up\u201d unrest at the G-20 summit in Hamburg and was used to incite violence. Calling the site the \u201cmost influential online platform for vicious left-wing extremists in Germany,\u201d officials said \u201cthe website had referred to police officers as \u2018pigs\u2019 and \u2018murderers,\u2019 and had featured instructions for creating Molotov cocktails.\u201d Though the site was ordered to shut down under laws banning illegal associations rather than\u00a0\u201chate speech\u201d laws, the principle is the same, part of a general German trend in which \u201cthe authorities have taken action against hate speech and incitements to violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The shutting of this left-wing site is part of a long tradition in Germany where any ideas deemed threatening to the prevailing order can be banned. In the 1950s, a European court upheld the order<\/a> of the German government to dissolve and bar the Communist Party, and to seize all its assets, on the grounds that it opposed the principles on which the German government was based.<\/p>\n

Even if \u201chate speech\u201d laws were\u00a0magically applied by authorities exactly as advocates would wish \u2014 whereby only the ideas one hates would be suppressed and punished while the ideas one loves would be allowed to flourish \u2014 there would still be very good reasons to oppose such laws. I wrote at length about those reasons several years ago at The Guardian<\/a> and again last week<\/a>, and ACLU Legal Director David Cole\u00a0wrote this week<\/a> in the New York Review of Books about why the ACLU defends all speech, even the most hateful kind.<\/p>\n

In particular, the assumption that censorship will weaken\u00a0hateful groups and make them go away is completely backward. Nothing strengthens hate groups more than censoring them, as it turns them into free speech martyrs, feeds their sense of grievance, and forces them to seek out more destructive means of activism.<\/p>\n

When I represented the free speech rights of such groups as a lawyer, they loved<\/em> nothing more than when censorship attempts were directed at them, because they knew that nothing would more effectively strengthen their cause. Conversely, as the aftermath of Charlottesville has proved, nothing exposes the evil of such groups, and thus weakens them, like letting them show their true nature.<\/p>\n

Ironically, those advocating that neo-Nazis and other hateful groups be forcibly censored are doing more to empower them than almost anything else could. As Cole wrote: \u201cWhen white supremacists called a rally the following week in Boston, they mustered only a handful of supporters. They were vastly outnumbered by tens of thousands of counter-protesters who peacefully marched through the streets to condemn white supremacy, racism, and hate. Boston proved yet again that the most powerful response to speech that we hate is not suppression but more speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the more important point is that the ideal application of censorship that\u00a0advocates envision isn\u2019t how such laws are applied. And it never will be. If you empower state authorities to decide which ideas are permitted and which are not \u2014 to assess which ideas contain enough \u201chatred\u201d to justify banning \u2014 it is not likely but\u00a0inevitable<\/em> that those laws will ultimately be used to outlaw the ideas you like. As Cole put it, \u201cIt is virtually impossible to articulate a standard for suppression of speech that would not afford government officials dangerously broad discretion and invite discrimination against particular viewpoints.\u201d<\/p>\n

As The Atlantic\u2019s Conor\u00a0Friedersdorf recently explained<\/a>, there is a grave irony at the heart of these newfound liberal desires for \u201chate speech\u201d censorship laws: The people who would implement and interpret them are those in power, people like Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions, GOP governors and legislators, and their litany of right-wing judges. It takes little imagination to see how such laws would be applied, and against whom. Indeed, the U.S. history of allowing such restrictions is that they have been used against exactly the groups that\u00a0censorship advocates think they are protecting. As Cole wrote:<\/p>\n

Our history illustrates that unless very narrowly constrained, the power to restrict the advocacy of violence is an invitation to punish political dissent. A. Mitchell Palmer, J. Edgar Hoover, and Joseph McCarthy all used the advocacy of violence as a justification to punish people who associated with Communists, socialists, or civil rights groups.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, the ACLU was borne out of an attempt<\/a> by former President Woodrow Wilson to criminalize dissent from his policy of involving the U.S. in World War I. It then spent decades fighting censorship efforts aimed at communists, socialists, civil rights groups, and LGBT activists. When you empower society to outlaw ideas it hates most,\u00a0that <\/em>is who is most vulnerable. Civil liberties lawyers\u00a0were successful in defending those groups only by upholding the principle that state censorship of political viewpoints is always impermissible.<\/p>\n

But to see what the actual rather than the hoped-for effects of hate speech laws are, no speculation\u00a0is necessary, nor does one need to dig through U.S. history in the 20th century. Just look at how such laws in Europe are now being applied, and against whom. Who could possibly look at that and view it as desirable?<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/p>\n

Related: <\/em><\/p>\n

The Misguided Attacks on ACLU for Defending Neo-Nazis\u2019 Free Speech Rights in Charlottesville<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As Congress Tries to Criminalize BDS, the Democratic Socialists of America Endorse It<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Glenn Greenwald<\/a> – glenn.greenwald@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If hate speech laws existed in the U.S., their prime targets would be pro-Palestinian groups, Muslims, atheists, Black Lives Matter activists, and antifa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97772\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}