Denmark: Non-Muslim convicted for comments on Islam…in his own home

The International Free Press Society has the bad news for Lars Hedegaard and all freedom lovers, SHAME ON DENMARK! Lars Hedegaard found guilty of hate speech.

Lars Hedegaard was today found guilty of hate speech under Article 266b of the Danish penal code.  The background is a good 35 minutes long interview to the site snaphanen.dk which Hedegaard gave in December 2009.

Here Hedegaard said, among other things, that “girls in Muslim families are raped by their uncles, their cousins or their dad.”

Lars Hedegaard has previously expressed regret if his statements gave the impression that he would accuse all Muslims of abusing their children.

The day after the interview he stressed that his opinions were about Islam and not Muslims.

In January Hedegaard was acquitted of racist statements in the lower court of Frederiksberg. The court believed that his statements were insulting, but the case was dismissed because he did not know that the interview, which took place during a Christmas lunch, would be published.

The prosecutor appealed the verdict to the Eastern Regional Court, which today claimed that Hedegaard knew his statements would be published. He is therefore declared guilty of racist statements.

Lars Hedegaard is sentenced to a fine of DKK 5,000 (approximately $1000).

Lars Hedegaard states: “The real losers today are freedom of speech and Muslim women. How can we speak up for them if we risk getting a state sanctioned label of racism?”

Diana West adds a key piece of information. Lars Hedegaard was declared guilty for speaking his opinion…in his own home!

Meanwhile, Back in Copenhagen …

Lars Hedegaard, journalist, author, president of the Danish Free Press Society and the International Free Society, was declared guilty by a Danish court of violating a deeply pernicious point of the nation’s penal code known as 266b. Specifically, Lars was convicted of “[issuing] a pronouncement or other communication by which a group of persons are threatened, insulted or denigrated due to their race, skin colour, national or ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation.” That he committed this “crime” in the privacy of his own home during a Christmas Day luncheon conversation is an extra icicle on this completely chilling verdict.

Unbeknownst to Hedegaard and without his permission, his remarks, which concerned the incidence of family rape in Islam, were recorded and later uploaded to the Internet. This saved him from a guilty verdict in his first trial in a lower court because 266b also requires intent to make “pronouncements” public. But, as his Danish Free Press Society colleague, Katrine Winkel Holm writes in an email today, “The prosecutor appealed the verdict to the Eastern Regional Court, which today claimed that Hedegaard knew his statements would be published.”

In other words, unphased by a lack of evidence, the prosecutor brought out a  crystal ball to support a  preordained guilty verdict. Like past show trials, it worked. Lars was declared guilty of “racist statements.” But what really happened is that this fiercely freedom-loving man of letters became the means by which the Danish state made clear its intentions to limit the speech of all of its citizens. Lars’ sentence — a fine of DKK 5,000 (approximately $1000) — is nothing next to the sharia-insired, state-ordained diminishment of free will in Denmark that it symbolizes.

Hedegaard says will appeal. “The real losers today are freedom of speech and Muslim women,” he states. “How can we speak up for them if we risk getting a state sanctioned label of racism?”

The powers that be don’t want us to. More indication that bin Laden’s death is more dog-and-pony show than earth-shaking event. The effort of Western countries to protect Islam and Muslims from all criticism continues apace, signalling just how deeply Islamic law now reaches into our most crucial institution: free speech.