A member of Finland’s True Finns party is unrepentant after having been sentenced to pay a fine for the crime of agitating against an ethnic group in a blog post.
True Finns local chapter leader Terhi Kiemunki has rejected the ruling that a blog post she wrote was defamatory, and said despite the €450 fine she was the true victim of the case and had been miscast and been unfairly convicted due to public interest in the case.
The case came to the attention of Finnish police after Ms. Kiemunki reported herself to them for investigation, as she had grown tired of accusations online that her writings were slanderous. Instead of being cleared as she hoped, the court found her comments about Islam could be “liable to cause contempt and hatred towards Muslims”, reports the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE).
Following her sentencing about the blog post, which asserted that the perpetrators of recent terror attacks in Europe had been Muslims and lambasted a “repressive, intolerant and violent religion and culture”, she said: “I am still of the view that declaring statistical facts or even sharing an opinion is not a crime if someone doesn’t like it.
“In these times, specifically in the recent past and today, all of the perpetrators of terrorist acts have turned out to be Muslim.
“I wrote the blog because the actions of the media, Greens and Left caused me to be condemned as a criminal, an instigator of hatred and someone who could be insulted and slandered at will publicly and in private messages; someone whose life and even family were threatened”.
Criminal cases surrounding disobliging remarks on Islam and immigrants are becoming a more common feature of European courtrooms, as laws banning the giving of offence are used to tackle the expressed opinions of opponents of mass migration. While ordinary citizens are pursued by police for social media postings, prominent politicians are facing severe penalties for expressing their views.
As reported by Breitbart London, Dutch Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders is presently in the final stages of what he calls a “travesty”, “absurd”, and “politically motivated” trial over alleged hate speech. In his closing statement before a possible conviction and sentencing, Mr. Wilders told the court that freedom of speech is what makes the Netherlands great, and “is our pride”.
Mr Wilders said that if the court passed judgment on him, they would also be passing judgment on millions of Dutch citizens who had voted for him and his party to represent them.
Follow Oliver Lane on Twitter: Follow @Oliver_Lane or e-mail to: olane@breitbart.com
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