The You Can't Make This Shit Up Department

[John V]

We had a far right party and it was banned after evidence was presented that they were fascists and members of underground (not so much now) nazi organizations throughout europe... For atheists? No of course not, but how does atheism relate to fascism? Being an atheist doesn't make you go against democracy or fundamental rights, it just makes you lack belief in gods or disbelieve gods. We didn't lose rights because of atheism, we lost them because of fascism.

And this is not a short step since the constitution only forbids fascism associations, not any other kind of associations, so such a ban wouldn't apply to anything else. What happens here is the same in germany, and my bet is that there are probably similar restrictions in spain, italy and former fascist states, and probably france and so on and other formerly invaded countries.

I don't think something I support will be considered equal to hate speech, hate speech is not criticizing something, hate speech is deliberately promoting racism, hate and segregation of people. As far as I know, attempts to implement communism and marxism-lenininsm failed and gave origin to totalitarian regimes, yet communist and marxist-leninist parties are perfectly legal, so I don't think the restrictions go to far.

First you say that a person can be sued for saying "all religious people are dumb and stupid," now you say it only applies to fascism. Which is it?

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Here's an interesting link:
http://www.legal-project.org/issues/euro...peech-laws
Excerpt:

Given the nebulous standards on which much of Europe's hate speech laws are based—indeed, there is not even a universally agreed upon definition for what constitutes hate speech—it is little wonder that such legislation has ensnared speech it was likely never meant to punish. Delineating the line between speech that is considered rude and that which is considered insulting for the purposes of criminal prosecution is an utterly subjective undertaking, and a distinction that governments are ill-suited to determine. Compounding the problem of these laws' arbitrariness is their selective application: while European authorities have at times appeared reluctant to go after Islamist firebrands spouting hatred, those engaging in legitimate debate about Islamism are frequently targeted for prosecution.