\u00a0October 14, 2020 \u2022\u00a0900 Words \u2022\u00a071\u00a0Co<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Multiple\n European Union states are breaking with post-war liberal conventions \nand openly imprisoning prominent political opponents and intellectuals \nfor ideological crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \ntactic being used by these governments is \u201crule through law,\u201d as opposed\n to rule of law. The strategy is commonly deployed in nations like Saudi\n Arabia against journalists, intellectuals and opposition figures who \nare targeted for repression first, then selectively prosecuted using \noften vaguely defined existing laws after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Greece<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier\n today a judge in Athens condemned almost all of Golden Dawn\u2019s elected \nofficials, including sitting European parliament member Ioannis Lagos, \nto years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nikos Michaloliakos, Golden Dawn\u2019s General Secretary, was given 13 years<\/a>\n for a RICO-style charge that alleged his patriotic Greek party, which \nuntil recently was the third most popular in the country, is a criminal \norganization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Michaloliakos\n was not tied to any specific crime, but prosecutors used editions of \nhis group\u2019s magazine featuring articles about Germany during World War \nII from the 1980s and 90s to argue that their political ideas were a \nform of violence in and of themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a public statement<\/a>\n published to the Golden Dawn website Michaloliakos blamed the court\u2019s \nruling on Golden Dawn\u2019s sudden electoral rise in 2013, stating \u201cThey say\n we are a criminal Nazi organization. [If that\u2019s true] why did they wait\n 30 years to charge us?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He \naccurately pointed out that Golden Dawn was never accused of being a \ncriminal organization since its founding in the 1980s. It was only after\n May 2012, when the party achieved 7% of the vote, that the Greek state \ndecided it was time to arrest them in 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Slovakia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yesterday another nationalist elected official, Marian Kotleba, was sentenced to four years in prison<\/a>\n by the Slovak government for handing out checks for 1,488 Euros to poor\n families in 2017. State prosecutors accused Kotleba, who leads the \npolitically ascendant People\u2019s Party \u2013 Our Slovakia, of using 1488 as a \nsecret code for \u201cwhite power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kotleba\u2019s\n party holds 17 seats out of 150 in parliament and has been steadily \ngrowing. Its existence has put pressure on conservatives to begin \nspeaking to nationalist issues and against corruption, a factor that has\n upset the nation\u2019s rulers and contributed to last year\u2019s failed attempt\n to get the People\u2019s Party outlawed. Kotleba plans to appeal the \ndecision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If \nthe Supreme Court upholds Kotleba\u2019s conviction, he will be permanently \nbanned from running for office and will be the first Slovak parliament \nmember to be imprisoned since the fall of communism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n France<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In \nFrance, patriotic intellectual and Yellow Vest activist Herv\u00e9 Ryssen is \nnow a month into his year and a half jail sentence for \u201canti-Semitism\u201d \nthat focused on pointing out the scientific impossibilities of the \nHolocaust narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ryssen\n has for years been dragged through the court system by lawyers \naffiliated with France\u2019s Jewish organizations, such as LICRA. A letter<\/a>\n signed by a diverse contingent of French public figures belonging to \nthe nationalist, artistic and Muslim communities expressed outrage at \nRyssen becoming a prisoner of conscience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Veteran\n Front National leaders Jean Marie Le Pen and Bruno Gollnisch both \ncondemned Ryssen\u2019s incarceration, stating that it revealed that France \nwas becoming a dictatorship where people are viciously punished for \ncrimes of opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both\n Gollnisch and Le Pen were expelled from the party by Marine Le Pen, who\n has now renamed the party National Rally and taken it down a route of \nsocial liberalism and Zionism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marine\n Le Pen\u2019s boyfriend and National Rally vice president, Jewish politician\n Louis Aliot, took to Twitter to attack Ryssen\u2019s defenders, claiming \nthat freedom of speech and \u201cprovocation\u201d (hate speech) are not the same.\n The sentiment was endorsed by Le Pen<\/a>, who hypocritically defends critics of Islam on free speech grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spain<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The \nleadership of the Spanish nationalist movement \u2014 Pedro Chaparro \n(National Democracy), Manuel Andrino (Spanish Falange), and Pedro Pablo \nPe\u00f1a (National Alliance) \u2014 are exhausting their final appeal of a prison\n sentence handed down to them over counter-protesting left-wing Catalan \nseparatists in 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prosecutors\n allege that the three leaders were responsible for a confrontation that\n occurred between members of Madrid\u2019s \u201cantifa\u201d and Spanish patriots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last\n year, Chaparro, Andrino, Pe\u00f1a and others began mending fractures in the\n large but deeply sectarian Spanish nationalist movement, putting aside \ndifferences to found the electoral bloc \u201cADN: Spanish Identity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Catalan language media is eager<\/a> to see the men behind bars. If their last appeal fails, they will serve years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSending a Message\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The \nmyriad of \u201chuman rights\u201d NGOs that complain when Eastern European \ncountries try to block George Soros from influencing their elections are\n all lauding this Europe-wide crackdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A statement<\/a>\n published on the conviction of Golden Dawn\u2019s parliamentary bloc by \nAmnesty International\u2019s European Director, Nils Mui\u017enieks, hailed the \ndecision as a victory against anti-immigration sentiment, \u201cThis verdict \nsends a clear message to political groups with aggressive anti-migrant \nand anti-human rights agendas in Greece and across Europe that violent \nand racist criminal activity \u2013 whether perpetrated by individuals on the\n street or members of parliament, will not go unpunished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Kotleba\u2019s conviction, multiple liberal NGOs backed by international finance declared the imprisonment of political opponents<\/a>\n a triumph for democracy, \u201cWe are glad that extremism in Slovakia is \nfinally being punished and addressed with the appropriate attention\u201d the\n groups commented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Various\n Jewish organizations have also celebrated the embrace of hard power by \nnervous liberal elites currently enduring a worldwide crisis in them and\n their failing institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While\n many European nations have hate speech laws, this is the first time in \nrecent memory that liberal democracies have mustered the nerve to begin \nsentencing elected officials to long prison sentences for their ideas. \nThese acts are highly discrediting to the neo-liberal project and will \nlikely have unforeseen consequences in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rule Through Law: Nationalist Politicians Are Being Imprisoned for Their Beliefs Across Europe Eric Striker \u2022 \u00a0October 14, 2020 \u2022\u00a0900 Words \u2022\u00a071\u00a0Co Multiple European Union states are breaking with post-war liberal conventions and openly imprisoning prominent political opponents and intellectuals … Continue reading ![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.unz.com\/IMAGES\/unz_email.png\")
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