“A 70-year-old Swedish woman in Dalarna is being prosecuted for hate speech after claiming on Facebook she saw migrants defecating in the streets and setting fire to cars.”
Was her claim really that implausible? Muslim migrants routinely torch cars in France. Is it so impossible that Muslim migrants would do so in Sweden? Clearly this poor woman has drawn attention to facts that the Swedish government doesn’t want people to know, and so must be punished.
Sweden’s Justice Minister Morgan Johansson’s remarks are frankly insidious and authoritarian. “We have freedom of speech in Sweden. This means people have the right to hold repulsive opinions here. But there are always limits… For example when it comes to hate speech.”
Hate speech in whose judgment? Who decides what is hate speech and what isn’t? The very idea of “hate speech” is destructive to the very concept of the freedom of speech. If Sweden has the freedom of speech, then one person can say what someone else thinks is “hate speech.” If that is not the case, then Sweden does not have the freedom of speech.
“Swedish Pensioner Prosecuted for ‘Hate’ for Accusing Migrants of Torching Cars on Facebook,” by Virginia Hale, Breitbart, May 14, 2017:
A 70-year-old Swedish woman in Dalarna is being prosecuted for hate speech after claiming on Facebook she saw migrants defecating in the streets and setting fire to cars.
According to the prosecution, the woman “expressed a disparaging view of refugees” on Facebook. She stands accused of having taken to the social media website in early July 2015 to make the “derogatory” post, alleging that migrants “set fire to cars, and urinate and defecate on the streets”.
Prosecutors in Sweden say the woman’s message violates the nation’s law on incitement to racial hatred (Hets mot folkgrupp, or HMF), a crime with carries a maximum penalty of four years.
The accused admitted that she wrote the post but denied committing any criminal act. The evidence against her consists of a screenshot from Facebook, according to local media….
Sweden’s Justice Minister Morgan Johansson cited freedom of speech when he rejected Gothenburg police chief Erik Nord’s suggestion that the country deports Islamic State-supporting migrants, after the Islamist terror attack in Stockholm last month.“We have freedom of speech in Sweden. This means people have the right to hold repulsive opinions here,” said Johansson.
“But there are always limits… For example when it comes to hate speech,” added the minister, who called Nord’s policy suggestion “problematic”, and demanded the police chief “explain himself”.