Fines for Criticising Homosexuality OK for European Court of Human Rights
A Swedish law foreseeing prison sentences for criticising the homosexualist agenda in public was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights which has ruled that there it was not in violation of freedom of expression. Four people were fined for a distributing leaflets.
In 2004, four activists distributed about 100 pamphlets at a secondary school expressing objections to the widespread acceptance of homosexual activity. The pamphlets read: “Homosexual Propaganda. In the course of a few decades society has swung from rejection of homosexuality and other sexual deviances to embracing this deviant sexual proclivity. Your anti-Swedish teachers know very well that homosexuality has a morally destructive effect on the substance of society and will willingly try to put it forward as something normal and good.” The pamphlets encouraged readers to respond to homosexualist propaganda by pointing out the connection between the spread of HIV/AIDS and increasing homosexual activity by infected persons, and that homosexualist lobby groups are attempting to “play down” their support of pedophilia. The Swedish government charged the group of pamphleteers with “agitation against a national or ethnic group,” a crime that carries a maximum penalty of 2 years in prison. The four men were convicted in 2006 by the District Court, whose ruling was overturned on appeal but later upheld by the Supreme Court in a narrow 5-3 decision. The four appealed to the ECHR, which ruled on February 9th 2012 that their application was “manifestly ill-founded”. The court said that the conviction constituted no violation of Article 10 (Freedom of Expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights. It was a “legitimate and proportional interference” with the applicants’ rights of freedom of expression and was necessary for the protection of the “reputation and rights of others”. The four activists, Tor Fredrik Vejdeland, Mattias Harlin, Björn Täng and Niklas Lundström, denied in court that they had intended to express contempt for homosexuals, instead saying that their purpose was to “start a debate about the lack of objectivity in the education in Swedish schools.” The Swedish Supreme Court acknowledged the applicants’ right to express their ideas, but found the statements had been “unnecessarily offensive.” Ultimately, the first three applicants were given suspended sentences combined with fines ranging from approximately 200 to 2,000 Euros and the fourth applicant was sentenced to probation. Sources: We thank LifeSiteNews.com for reporting. http://documents.icj.org/Case_of_Vejdeland_and_others_v._Sweden.pdf