The proposed amendments to the Criminal Law led by party associations Development/For! (Attīstībai/Par!) and New Unity (Jaunā Vienotība) once again clearly indicate the ideological incompatibility of the political forces forming the coalition.
The authors of the draft laws want to specifically highlight hate speech against members of the LGBT community, but the conservative parties believe that such an approach would make the LGBT community unduly privileged compared to the rest of society.
This is also the opinion of Jānis Iesalnieks, who represents National Alliance (Nacionālā apvienība) in the Saeima Legal Affairs Committee.
A draft law has begun to move in the Saeima, which will significantly change the Criminal Law's position towards hate speech. How would you rate the submitted version?
We looked at the proposals in the Criminal Law Policy Subcommittee today, and there I, like the majority of the Subcommittee, did not support these proposals. In my opinion, it is not right to form any privileged groups of victims. Meaning, if a criminal crime has been committed - to treat one type of victim differently due to belonging to a social group.
Most important, in my view, was the proposal to exclude the criterion of significant harm, which has been the case so far, and this actually ensures that the police deal with real criminal offenses with consequences, rather than dealing with various, possibly politically motivated, applications.
Do you think that there is truth to the statement that the proposed amendments will open the door to the possibility of unjustifiably prosecuting any opinion that is not in line with the vision of the LGBT community?
I think yes, definitely, because we are already seeing how this perception of what hate speech is and what it is not changes over the years. If in the past freedom of speech was highly respected and respected by all, now the tendency is for liberals to try to silence those who think differently, including, as we see from the Western countries, through Criminal Law.
If anyone naively thinks that conservative forces will also be able to protect themselves with hate speech clauses, then I think it is quite naive, because wherever such clauses are introduced in Western Europe, it has gone against conservative freedom of speech.
It is clear that LGBT organizations have big lawyers who can terrorize those who think differently. We already have examples from Western Europe where pastors cannot even quote the Bible.
What would be your laconic definition of hate speech?
The way it is currently defined in the Criminal Law - if a person calls to physically harm people, based on some characteristics of the group. It is divided into two articles for us: ethnic, racial, religious hatred and social hatred, where there are different types of groups. That is the way it has been historically separated.
Of course, if such a call to take action against a group has consequences, if there are attacks due to belonging to a group, it is clear that such instigators need to be punished. But quoting the Bible and saying that a family consists of a father, a mother and children would not be punishable because that is freedom of opinion.