Hungarian appellate court curtails Freedom of opinion
This is a guest post by Karl Pfeifer
In July I published an article about courageous Hungarian journalist Tibor Bakács and biased system of justice within which he works . Incitement against Jews, Roma, the gay community and the left are permissible in Hungary and considered part of freedom of opinion. But Tibor Bakács, a journalist, has been fined by a Hungarian court for considering a gang of racist, antisemitic bikers as “fascists.”
Bakács was taken to court by the gang, who call themselves the Goj (as in “Non-Jewish”) Motorosok (as in plural of motorcyclist.) You can see the gang’s logo here and you can see two of its members wearing an antisemitic t-shirt here.”
On November 19 the appellate court of Budapest overturned the verdict of the lower court.
The court reprimanded Bakács because what Bakács said “was not a statement of fact, but the use of an expression capable of undermining the honour of the plaintiff.”
But if the statement of Bakács was not a fact, then it was a value judgment, based reasonably on underlying facts. In Hungary many fear the victory of the right wing opposition party Fidesz and of the neo-arrow cross party Jobbik, allied in many local coalitions. Probably this is the reason the court thought it must defend the honour of this motor bikers gang.
In doing so, they sent out thus send out the signal: in Hungary you can incite hatred against Gypsies, Jews, Homosexuals and leftwing people. But you are not allowed to make a value judgment on a racist gang. This is a serious curtailing of freedom of opinion, Hungarians are so proud of.
Three to four members of the Goi Motorosok were present at the trial, two of them wearing a tunic with the inscription “second lieutenant” showing that not only the infamous Hungarian Guard wears uniforms in Hungary. Another member of the gang present at the trial wore a T-shirt with the implicit antisemitic inscription “Do not tease us, fateless”
This is a reference to Hungarian Nobel prize-winner Imre Kertesz ’s slim novel, “Fatelessness”, a book about the experiences of a fourteen year old boy, George Koves, in the infernos of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. By the way because of an Interview Kertész gave the Berlin daily „Die Welt” on November 7 rightwing media attacked him again.
It remains to be seen if the High court of Hungary will confirm this faulty judgment and thereby make it clear to the world that the country has a biased system of justice. In that case the European court of Human Rights will have to deal with this case.
Comments
| 29 November 2009, 6:35 pm |
@Technolust@ why don’t you peddle your idiocy on a neonazi Website?
@Fatloser@ Stupidity should be fought with truth and explanation, not thought crime legislation, which ultimately is predicated on the concept that idiots have to be told lies.
your receipt was tried in Germany before 1933 and failed. Had German democracy defended itself against what you call “Stupidity”, a lot of misery could have been avoided. Probably what you suggest is working well in the UK. In those countries, where Nazism showed to what it is capable, (f.i. Germany, Austria, Hungary…) the state must have legislation in order to curb dangerous incitement called by you “Stupidity”
| 29 November 2009, 7:13 pm |
The EU is becoming increasingly undemocratic and the advance of fascism in member states is part of this trend. Unfortunately people take democracy and human rights for granted and forget that those things had to be fought for in the past and need to be defended now.
| 29 November 2009, 7:14 pm |
Needs to be noted that in Hungary, judges and prosecutors face death threats from neo-fascists. Their home addresses are published on websites and face intimidation on the regular.
This is not to defend this sick decision but to put it in some context.
| 29 November 2009, 8:40 pm |
@Uncle Hans- I don’t really know what to say. I think your comment indicates that everyone on this site needs to chill out and grow a sense of humour. I appreciate that you use Harry’s Place as a forum to announce your unfashionable opinions, but don’t be so earnest.
Believe me, I would ‘peddle my idiocy on a neo-Nazi website’ if I weren’t terrified that, through they’re connivings, they’d find me and and ‘do some eugenics’ on me.
I’d like a cybersorry, please.
| 29 November 2009, 8:48 pm |
an interesting light on Hungarian Justice is the case of Dr.György Adam
English version on:
| 30 November 2009, 2:09 am |
@Uncle Hans
So you don’t fight ignorance with truth but rather with more ignorance?
In the context of the internet banning “hate speech” is now about as realistic as banning fetish porn. Making examples of a few people and tossing them in jail will only feed the beast.
Also if you think there is some great dividing line between some academic recording and trying to address the causes of criminality amongst Roma and “hatred” saying Roma are causing crime, or between Dispatches “The Israel Lobby” and a random page on David Duke’s website there really isn’t that much. It’s a continuum. A judgement call. The correct response is counter argument and evidence. Nazi Germany was dysfunctional not because people were allowed to spout garbage about Jews, but rather that free speech and debate about Jews or anything else was subverted to a government line, and it just so happened that in that instance Jews were demonised without the redress, but it could be potentially anyone in some future authoritarian state.
| 30 November 2009, 7:06 am |
@Fatloser@ You twist my argument. I did not speak about Nazi Germany but about the liberal republic of Weimar, which in a stupid way permitted the nazis murderous free incitement, with the results we could.
So in a country with long democratic tradition like the UK this works – of course not in time of war – as we could see. UK home secretary did already before the war not allow the wearing of uniforms. And after the outbreak of war MI5 had watched the BUP very closely.
So probably such a tactic as you propose is working in Universities, but I doubt it, because at some of those a bunch of mad Trotzkytes and other riff-raff, who are a minority do not respect your “answering arguments with arguments”.
So Fatloser: Charity begins at home.
| 30 November 2009, 12:17 pm |
What for?
| 30 November 2009, 2:54 pm |
For suggesting that I was a neo-Nazi/that I would be welcome there.
It’s a pretty lame accusation.
| 30 November 2009, 3:07 pm |
Reading what you wrote in your first posting I can only repeat.
@Techno..
You seem to be an idiot. The democratic Journalist Bakacs was reprimanded, because he called a racist m.bikers gang “fascist” So his free speech was curtailed, and you take the side of the racists.
so yes
@Technolust@ why don’t you peddle your idiocy on a neonazi Website?
| 30 November 2009, 4:16 pm |
@UncleHans@ Irony, youthfully misplaced. Have you never said anything inappropriate thinking, correctly, that it was really funny? I’ll learn.
I’m not going to ‘peddle my idiocy’ anywhere else. I’m too Jewy and too Sinti to get involved with neo-Nazis. Yes, those two cultures are deliciously incompatible, but it allows ‘anti-Zionists’ to think I’m a scum-laden fascist while they join people such as yourself to flex their liberal muscles when going minority-hugging. I thoroughly enjoy both these things.
It’s too easy to engage with your argument and call you a Nazi because you take the name Hans. Yes, I’m suggesting that my argument ad hominem would be at exactly the same level of validity as your suggesting that I’m a neo-Nazi because I was being incomprehensible via the infobahn.
All publicity is good publicity.
Trust your technolust at blogspot dot com.
| 30 November 2009, 4:24 pm |
Irony? looks like you don’t understand what this word means.
| 30 November 2009, 4:33 pm |
Maybe people like you should pay more taxes so that my dilapidated, comprehensive, education were both more efficient and more exhilerating. If this were the case, maybe I’d know what ‘irony’ meant according to your strict definition AND I wouldn’t be spending my afternoons reading blogs that make me despair about ‘the outside world’.
Also, I was actually being ‘post-ironic’- which is just an excuse to hide reactionary or offensive views behind a veneer of humour. If you like, we could rebrand it ‘mere facetiousness’
I think that the term ‘wobbled rats’ is a little facetious, don’t you?
| 30 November 2009, 9:20 pm |
de gustibus non est disputandum
| 30 November 2009, 11:01 pm |
sed cum tu posito pudore ostendo mihi coleos patentes cum cunno mihi mentula est vocanda
A journalist calling a group of bikers fascist should very much be legally permissible, even if untrue. I’m not one to spread the racism = fascism meme myself since the things that were wrong with fascism have little to do with racism and the “fascism problem” can arise in a non-racist, or even anti-racist context. One can also most definately be a racist without being a fascist, though both those words have now gained a rather nebulous quality.
So should “inciting hatred” of “whoever” be legal. The law should not be in the business of banning the production of a particular emotion in a listener. From the description this appears to be a “biased system of justice”, but so would be the reverse. Part of the issue here though is that Jews and Gypsies are not a corporate group, though that merely makes any claim of corporate action look idiotic (e.g the Jews did 9/11), but “Jews are swindlers” or “Gypsies are thieves” should be legal statements, to which the idiocy of assigning such labels to a non-corporate collection of individuals should be vigorously pointed out. “Jews are statistically over-representing in swindling” and “Gypsies are statistically over-represented in thievery” are potential factual statements which it is rather dangerous to ban, as opposed to disprove with evidence. Go down that road and even Tony Blair* could be seen to be immune to prosecution and the far right singled out for inequitable treatment.
*http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/apr/12/ukcrime.race
Stupidity should be fought with truth and explanation, not thought crime legislation, which ultimately is predicated on the concept that idiots have to be told lies.