Court finds City Council member guilty of insulting religion
Halla-aho acquitted of incitement against ethnic group
Jussi Halla-aho, an independent member of the Helsinki City Council elected to the council on the True Finns ticket, plans to appeal Tuesday’s decision by the Helsinki District Court, which convicted him of violating the sanctity of religion.
The court fined him EUR 330.
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Halla-aho was also charged over another statement he made in the same blog article, according to which robbing passers-by and scrounging on taxpayers’ money might be a genetic characteristic of Somalis. In the view of Deputy Prosecutor-General Jorma Kalske, this constituted incitement against an ethnic group, but the court acquitted Halla-aho on the charge.
The court found that Halla-aho was simply trying to use satire to criticise authorities for not reacting to a newspaper editorial, which suggested that killing people was a “national, and possibly downright genetic special characteristic” of the Finnish people.
The court concluded that Halla-aho was seeking to indicate that immigrants can enjoy better protection from officials than the native population.
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Court%20finds%20City%20Council%20member%20guilty%20of%20insulting%20religion/1135249190300
How many Somalis are there in Finland?