Bulgaria Increases Sanctions against Hate Speech

[hajduk]

Authors of hate speech will face up to four years imprisonment and a BGN 5,000 fine, according to the newly adopted amendments to the Bulgarian Penal Code.

The penalty will apply to journalists and authors in the media and in electronic information systems, such as websites.

The newly adopted amendments explain in details the forms of discrimination and incitement that will be punishable. They include discrimination, based on sexual orientation, religion, disabilities and social standing among others.

Besides facing jail and fines, violators will also be held up to public censure. The sanctions will be the same for use of violence or property damage, based on race, nationality, ethnicity, religion and political views. Racist or xenophobic murders would be punished with 10 to 20 years imprisonment.

The amendments also envision an increase of the penalties for destruction of a protected area, valuable rock formations and cliffs. The fines for perpetrators would range from BGN 2,000 to BGN 10,000.

Up to three years imprisonment would be the penalty for poachers who kill protected animals or destroy protected plants.

The Penal Code will from now on oblige the Bulgarian state to recognize and apply legal implications of convictions, issued in other EU countries.

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=121395

[Osweo]

Horrific. Those in society who are aware enough to see this, have to do a lot of work to make their less thinking peers recognise that it is plain wrong to lock someone up for FOUR YEARS merely for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Too many will reply that 'Oh, they deserve it for being Nazis' or whatever, but the subject has to be tackled from principle, and the brainwashed need to be made to see that a serious principle is at stake; allowing the state to decide which things we are allowed to say, or whether some murders are 'worse' than others because of perceived motive - this is making 'law' a farce.

[Raikaswinþs]

claps for bulgaria. hope tho that they don't mix human rights with multiculturalist shit , open borders, and allowing radicals preeching hate acording to their religious or political agendas like we have been doing in the west

[The Ripper]

claps for bulgaria. hope tho that they don't mix human rights with multiculturalist shit , open borders, and allowing radicals preeching hate acording to their religious or political agendas like we have been doing in the west

No, we have every hope that Bulgaria will be the great exception. :rolleyes:

[Raikaswinþs]

I do have some hope. bulgarians are tough minded. its the guys that move their heads vertically when they wanna say no

[Osweo]

claps for bulgaria. hope tho that they don't mix human rights with multiculturalist shit , open borders, and allowing radicals preeching hate acording to their religious or political agendas like we have been doing in the west

Are you really such an imbecile that you can't see that your positive 'option' leads inevitably to the same thing, or is indeed the same thing in flimsy disguise? :rolleyes2:

[The Lawspeaker]

claps for bulgaria. hope tho that they don't mix human rights with multiculturalist shit , open borders, and allowing radicals preeching hate acording to their religious or political agendas like we have been doing in the west
Are you nuts, mate ? Such laws merely exist to stamp out any debate and to turn Bulgaria in a multicultural hellhole like the ones we have here in Western Europe (and they already seem to have problems with gypsy and Turkish minorities).

[Wyn]

Are you nuts, mate ? Such laws merely exist to stamp out any debate

Yes. And they are always intentionally vague and open-ended so as to allow for easy manipulation.

The text of a hate speech law from the UK:


A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—

(a) he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or

(b) having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.

What does that mean? Whatever anybody wants it to mean.