Politico.eu: Denmark sacrifices free speech in the name of fighting terror
“…In Denmark, as in Europe more generally, there is a serious lack of confidence in the power of free speech to cope with ideological threats to a free and democratic society. According to an opinion poll in Jyllands-Posten, 55 percent of Danes are in favor of criminalizing religious speech that is seen as undermining Danish values.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen made it clear that he plans to criminalize speech that goes against Danish law. This latest initiative breaks with 70 years of fighting extreme ideologies without curtailing civil liberties.
There were calls to ban Nazism after World War II, and the Danish government considered censoring a Communist daily paper and limiting the speech of Communists during the Cold War. In both cases, the government backed down and Denmark’s strong democratic institutions and a vibrant civil society prevailed.
Of course, criminalizing religious hate preachers’ anti-democratic speech and denying them access to the country will not turn Denmark into a repressive dictatorship. What it will do, however, is blur one of the crucial distinctions between a liberal democracy and a dictatorship…”
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Denmark’s Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen made it clear that he plans to criminalize speech that goes against Danish law. This latest initiative breaks with 70 years of fighting extreme ideologies without curtailing civil liberties.
There were calls to ban Nazism after World War II, and the Danish government considered censoring a Communist daily paper and limiting the speech of Communists during the Cold War. In both cases, the government backed down and Denmark’s strong democratic institutions and a vibrant civil society prevailed.
Of course, criminalizing religious hate preachers’ anti-democratic speech and denying them access to the country will not turn Denmark into a repressive dictatorship. What it will do, however, is blur one of the crucial distinctions between a liberal democracy and a dictatorship…”
Read more