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The Brandon Five · 01-28-2011, 10:26 PM

Interesting case in Denmark.

Excerpts:

Quote:

My counsel has instructed me that in cases brought under Article 266b, the only thing that determines whether one is convicted or not is a matter of the perceived insult whereas one is barred from proving the truth of the statement. -
Lars Hedegaard

Quote:

I have since learned that according to current legal usage defendants in cases brought under Article 266b are denied the right to prove their case. With this article in the penal code I must be assumed convicted in advance. I have no intention to participate in this circus. Therefore I confess. This will also ensure agreement between the verdict I shall be handed in a few moments and the unbecoming article in the penal code according to which I am convicted. -
Danish MP Jesper Langballe

Read the whole thing. Something is rotten there.

http://www.sappho.dk/english.htm

PatsFanInVa · 01-29-2011, 09:07 AM

Okay, so from what I understand, we have the word of a guy who pleads guilty to some Danish hate-speech law, saying how terrible the law is that he just pled guilty to.

Looks like he's no stranger to such speech, although I do reserve any comment on ol' Lars' trial and his complaint about it, not to mention the Danish law.

It does strike me that it's worth knowing what people are p.o.'d about. This appears to be the background of the complaints:

Islam in Europe: Denmark: "Muslim girls aren't human beings" (UPDATED)

Quote:

In the interview Hedegaard said as follows: "Girls in Muslim families are raped by their uncles, their cousins or their father [...] They are not human beings. They have a function as a a womb - they bear the offspring of the warriors and create new warriors, other than that.. well, they can be used for sexual purposes, but they have no value."

Quote:

Our leaders do not take this seriously and I am afraid that it will take a public uprising before they will take this seriously. But they must. After the German occupation of Denmark there were quite a few who had collaborated with the enemy who came into very hot water. The same thing could happen here… This cannot be solved with a compromise, it’s either our civilisation or their non-civilisation and barbarism. Our two ways of life are like fire and water. One of them must be victorious.

In other words, he's like Harry in Denmark.

Subsequent to an initial uproar over the interview the above quotes came from, Hedegaard evidently saw fit to issue a statement of "regret"...

Quote:

First, I will apologize, if I gave the impression that I wanted to accuse all Muslims - or most of them - of abusing their children. That of course wasn't my intention

Old Lars is a big figure in something called the "Free Press Society..."

Here's what some of their members think of his antics...

Quote:

Parish priest Katrine Lilleør demands that Hedegaard quit as head of the Free Press Society, or else she will quit the society's advisory board.

"I don't want to be a background group in a society where Muslims are being generalized in any way and shoved aside as an extremist group. Therefore I think that she should quit as chairman, and if he doesn't quit, then I will quit

Seems like a popular reaction...

Quote:

Søren Pind (Liberal Party) and Naser Khader (Conservative Party), announced that they're quitting the Free Press Society's advisory board.

The blog's most recent post is Hedegaard saying he doesn't regret his comments after all, and how good his statements are for the Free Press Society. He then explains how he's right, and some other guys explain why he's wrong.

Again: this doesn't really help us on the subject of his tormented complaint, worthy of a Socrates drinking the cup of hemlock in the interest of this unjust, modern-day Athens.

It doesn't prove a thing either way, on that count -- but neither does the impassioned summing-up speech of a man pleading guilty.

What you've presented is a statement to the effect of "I'm guilty but the law's wrong."

I'd love to see a more complete account of this trial, preferably from an unbiased source (i.e., not Sean Hannity's repetition of what the convicted man says is wrong with the law in the first place.)

I have no doubt such an account may not be flattering to the Danish law anyway, from an American P.O.V.; after all, European laws forbid display of the swastika and Nazi paraphernalia too. I mean, how could you even air the Beck show over there, right?

But even in the U.S., free speech is not an unalloyed "good". You still have the "fighting words" exception to free speech, after all. I think hate speech laws should simply be written to incorporate that notion, myself, if that is not in fact the bottom-line judicial rationale.

But in any event, given that we have only the convict's word for how bad the law is, I'd like to see more detail on the law itself and on the trial specifically.

PFnV

***Harry Boy*** · 01-29-2011, 09:22 AM

I'm glad I didn't start this thread.