MARTIN EHALA ⟩ The hate speech bill is like a novice dictator's dream come true

A still from the film «1984». The adoption of the hate speech bill in Estonia would create a legal basis for the establishment of a large-scale surveillance society. Photo: TopFoto

• The Framework Decision on hate speech has criminalized trespassing against political correctness.
• The fear of hate speech has led to the avoidance of reporting on crimes committed by minorities.
• The adoption of Estonia's hate speech bill would legalize extensive thought control.

Estonia has found itself in a difficult position with the transposition of the EU's Framework Decision on hate speech, where the fear of a penalty from Brussels has become the main justification for the legislative change. Britain's grim example should serve as a warning for us not to make the same mistake, Martin Ehala, editor of Fookus, writes.

The 16 years since the adoption of the hate speech Framework Decision have shown that hate speech laws are often misused to conceal the failures of multicultural integration policies. This is particularly evident in the context of the recent suppression of protests in the United Kingdom.

Although the UK is no longer in the European Union, it has similar hate speech laws. And the zeal with which Keir Starmer's Labor government implements them shows once again that the criminalization of hate speech is loved by Socialists in particular. After all, in Estonia, too, Socialists are the only ones who would like to transpose the Framework Decision in Lukashenko's best traditions.

Political correctness and hate speech

In the United Kingdom and other Western societies (including Estonia, although to a lesser extent), political correctness towards racial minorities is strictly monitored. Political correctness is based on the perception that the majority view racial minorities, including immigrants, with malicious prejudice, attributing to them laziness, theft, violence, rape, proliferation of sexually transmitted diseases, terrorism and other evils. And negative prejudice breeds exclusion, which prevents members of minorities from integrating successfully into society.

The hate speech Framework Decision has created a legal framework by which trespassing against political correctness is criminalized. As a result, those who draw attention to cases where a minority stands out in a negative light in any way can be accused of leveraging negative stereotypes and, through this, inciting hatred, even if they do not directly call for violence.

The hate speech Framework Decision has created a legal framework by which trespassing against political correctness is criminalized.

In 2008, when the Framework Decision was adopted, some could still realistically hope that, if stereotypes were to be suppressed once and for all, it would also be possible to integrate immigrants. This illusion began to crumble rapidly. Let us recall that German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her famous «Der Ansatz für Multikulti ist gescheitert, absolut gescheitert!» (The policy of multiculturalism has failed, completely failed!) already in 2010. But since then, no politician at such a high level has dared to question multiculturalism as a fundamental principle of the West. And those who have attempted to do so have become targets of silencing, including with hate speech laws.

The UK's fear of racism

In the UK, the basic consensus on multiculturalism has now begun to fracture very visibly and clearly. The recent protests (and unrest) were not driven by prejudiced xenophobia of far-right extremists, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer and much of the media portrayed it, but by real and decades-long social injustices, which involved silence about minority crimes, while those who drew attention to them were canceled and punished under hate speech laws.

Apparently due to the colonial past, it has been virtually taboo for Brits to criticize minorities at any level, from political to personal. Because of the taboo, such long-term mass crimes as the actions of Muslim grooming gangs that sexually abused several thousand English underage girls over the years could happen. For a long time, no one dared to talk about the whole thing or investigate these crime reports, fearing accusations of racism. Even after a thorough analysis of what happened, attempts are evident to obscure or challenge the fact that the perpetrators had a very clear ethno-religious background (Muslims of Pakistani origin) and that the victims were also chosen on the basis of ethno-religious characteristics (secular Europids).

Apparently due to the colonial past, it has been virtually taboo for Brits to criticize minorities at any level, from political to personal.

A second very Orwellian example of this is from 2018, when a video clip went viral on social media of an English young man of about 16 pushing a boy younger than him, the son of a Syrian immigrant, who, in addition, had one arm in a cast, on a playground. The clip was followed by a nationwide outcry against racism at the highest level, with the attack condemned by then UK Prime Minister Theresa May at nowhere less than the G20 summit.

It later emerged that the clip had been taken out of context and that the attack was neither unprovoked nor racist, but that the smaller boy was a school bully feared among his peers, who had been called to order by the older guy with the attack. Unfortunately, the negative information about the immigrant was suppressed; the teachers at the school were paid a total of around 275,000 pounds by the council so they will not speak about the incident. In addition, the school where the incident took place was closed.

Citizen activist Tommy Robinson, who tried to bring the truth to light, was sued for defaming the immigrant boy. Despite 12 people testifying in court in support of Robinson's claims, the judge ruled it as defamation and, among other things, prohibited Tommy Robinson from showing the documentary that analyzed the case and in which all the aforementioned witnesses also spoke. However, Tommy Robinson released the documentary on the platform X on July 27 of this year, and it has already been viewed nearly 50 million times:

Britain's banned documentary - SILENCED pic.twitter.com/HKIBPsuZTA

— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) July 27, 2024

The film's release was timed to coincide with a major national anti-immigration demonstration in London's Trafalgar Square and the film was viewed 10 million times in its first day. The film is very memorable. Against this backdrop, a few days after the demonstration, another stabbing took place in Southport, resulting in the deaths of three primary school girls and life-threatening injuries to several others. As usual, the authorities kept the identity of the perpetrator a secret and false information spread that it was an illegal immigrant.

The stabbing triggered large-scale demonstrations in several cities that escalated into unrest. The British prime minister, Labor's Keir Starmer, called the protesters far-right thugs and orchestrated a massive wave of arrests that targeted not only those who had been mobbing but also those who had spoken out critically about immigration or minorities on social media or on the streets. This is in a situation where prisons in the UK are already overcrowded. Basically, for each new convict, someone else is immediately released to secure the prison cell:

Holy sh*t

The UK is releasing 5k prisoners to make room for anti-immigration protestors

Some of those will be voiIent offenders pic.twitter.com/9yqjz0oNuX

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) August 19, 2024

In reality, of course, it was a much broader social outburst, which was just further ratcheted up by extremists. Just as, for example, the police use of force at left-wing rallies in the United States in 2020, which resulted in the death of George Floyd, led to far-left extremists burning cars, looting shops and vandalizing memorials.

What mobilized large numbers of people in the UK to the demonstrations in this case was driven directly by reaction to the duplicity of power, highlighted with the release of Tommy Robinson's film, which was immediately followed by the stabbing attack on children who had gathered for a Taylor Swift fan event.

Unfortunately, Keir Starmer's decision to punish all rioters and inciters of hatred with the harshest measures only exacerbated the injustice. For example, one protester was handed a non-suspended sentence of 20 months in prison for a Facebook post allegedly inciting hatred, which had received six likes, and which the court did not make public, as well as for the opinion that he does not want his money to go to immigrants who «rape our children and get priority».

Meanwhile, such attitude-based repression is taking place in a situation where perpetrators of violence are increasingly escaping non-suspended prison sentences in the UK if they simply ask for freedom and promise that they will not do so again in the future. The number of such releases has increased by nearly 40 percent compared to 2019 and is now twice as likely a punishment for violent crimes as a real prison sentence. At the same time, stabbings have become epidemic in the UK.

Meanwhile, attitude-based repression is taking place in a situation where perpetrators of violence are increasingly escaping non-conditional prison sentences in the UK if they simply ask for freedom.

The fact that socialist Prime Minister Keir Starmer has not attempted to understand the reasons behind the discontent but has instead pressed for more political correctness demonstrates how the EU Framework Decision on hate speech is being used in practice to silence society's real issues and repress dissenters. It is no coincidence that authoritarian methods for suppressing truth-tellers are desired by politically left-wing governments (which should come as no surprise to those who remember the Soviet era). Estonia's hate speech bill is a particularly egregious example of this.

Estonia's hate speech bill is madness

The European Framework Decision expressly states that it «is limited to combating particularly serious forms of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law», and concerns public incitement to violence or hatred «based on race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.»

Section 151 of the Penal Code currently in valid in Estonia, which deals with the incitement of hatred, meanwhile is much broader, also mentioning language, gender, sexual orientation, political opinion, and financial or social status as characteristics. The Estonian law also offers a broader definition of hate speech. This includes public incitement to hatred, violence, or discrimination. The latter is not mentioned in the Framework Decision.

However, the contradiction with the Framework Decision is that, under Section 151, punishment can only be imposed if the act «results in danger to the life, health or property of a person». The Penal Code also sets forth hate speech as a misdemeanor. However, under the Framework Decision, public incitement of violence or hatred should be defined as criminal offenses, regardless of whether they result in an immediate threat to someone's life, health or property.

Bill 232 SE, which is currently pending, is attempting to transpose the Framework Decision in such a way that the limitation concerning immediate threat is removed from the Estonian law and the acts are defined as criminal offenses, while everything else will remain the same.

If this bill were passed, Estonia's hate speech law would become much stricter than what the EU Framework Decision requires. It would criminalize public incitement to discrimination based on any of the characteristics listed in Section 151, such as requiring language proficiency for taxi drivers, calling for the introduction of a progressive income tax, or for family benefits to be means-tested. It would also be a hate crime to propose putting the definition of marriage to a referendum, as set forth by the new party ERK in their platform. There would be no need for an immediate threat; it would be enough for someone to call for imposing restrictions on someone else, and the person could be imprisoned for one to three years.

It would criminalize public incitement to discrimination based on any of the characteristics listed in Section 151, such as requiring language proficiency for taxi drivers.

So, by using the Framework Decision as a pretext, people making laws in Estonia are trying to pull off a novice dictator's dream come true with the help of the hate speech bill. It's doubtful even Lukashenko himself could tighten the screws so elegantly.

The Framework Decision itself is dictatorial too

But even if the Framework Decision were to be adopted in a narrow fashion, it would still be a dangerous change in the law, in the sense that in the future it would no longer be necessary for there to be a real threat to anyone – it would be enough for a person's opinions and views to «give reason to fear» that a threat will emerge. However, the conditions for the basis for fear to arise are not defined, but left to the discretion of those concerned.

If an investigator experiences fear, they may open a criminal case. And even if the court ultimately acquits the accused, the latter will be spiritually and materially ruined by the investigation and trial. All the more so because the Estonian amendment would also give investigative agencies the power to carry out surveillance to gather information about potential preparation of hate speech.

If an investigator experiences fear, they may open a criminal case. And even if the court ultimately acquits the accused, the latter will be spiritually and materially ruined by the investigation and trial.

Thus, after the adoption of 232 SE, anyone's communication could be secretly intercepted or their correspondence monitored if there was "reason to fear" that they might be planning hate speech. The Framework Decision does not require anything like this. Under current Estonian law, preventive surveillance can only be conducted on individuals who have been repeatedly convicted of inciting hatred.

No joke – those who drafted the Estonian legislative amendment have included a provision, as a sort of «footnote», that would allow a government with dictatorial tendencies to establish a total surveillance society.

The grim fate of the UK is the reason why the hate speech law currently pending should be immediately put in the bin and some serious thinking done about where the problem is and what the solution is.

P.S. If it is truly necessary to adopt the Framework Decision out of fear of a penalty, this should be done by adding a separate legal provision that specifically and exclusively addresses incitement to racism and xenophobia, as the Framework Decision requires. The current Section 151, which lists other characteristics, could remain to classify such acts as misdemeanors, along with the current limitation regarding immediate threat. We could live with that.