During a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, a debate took place on expanding the EU list of crimes to include incitement to hatred and hate crimes. ECR MEPs Patryk Jaki and Beata Kempa spoke during the debate.
Patryk Jaki noted that, according to the draft report on expanding the EU list of crimes to include incitement to hatred and hate crimes, it would be possible to imprison “one’s opponents,” for example, for criticizing illegal migration or the LGBTQ community. “If a European Union citizen reads police data showing that migrants commit more crimes, they will go to prison,” he said, expressing his concerns. The MEP also asked whether, in a situation where, for example, another citizen—in accordance with their right to freedom of religion, common sense, and scientific knowledge of biology—states that there are only two genders, “and not—as you believe—256,” would that person also go to prison? “You are the heirs to communist ideologies, and just like them, you use beautiful slogans, but you dream only of destroying freedom,” the Polish politician stated.
“Your favorite ideologue, Herbert Marcuse, wrote explicitly about what you are hiding,” said Patryk Jaki, quoting an excerpt from his essay titled “Repressive Tolerance”: “Liberating tolerance would therefore mean intolerance toward the right and tolerance for left-wing movements.” “So you want to intimidate and terrorize everyone—not for the sake of freedom, but because you hate freedom and want to impose censorship. There will never be consent for this,” he commented.
Beata Kempa stated that when discussing hate speech, it must first and foremost be defined. “Something that constitutes hate speech deserves the harshest punishment,” she emphasized. At the same time, she stated that it cannot be the case that, under the guise of punishing hate speech, people are actually punished for their views in order to eliminate those with differing beliefs from political activity or, more broadly, from social life.
As she explained, an example of such action is the punishment meted out to her and several ECR MEPs for expressing their views on mass illegal migration by liking a post about it on social media platforms. “And is that also hate speech? Are we supposed to stand trial for that, be punished, and be eliminated from public life?” Kempa asked. The ECR MEP emphasized that she is against hate speech but supports freedom of speech.
