The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will not grant Perussuomalaiset (PS) Kotka City Councilman Freddy van Wonterghem the right to appeal a conviction for ethnic agitation in February by the Kouvola appeals court, reports YLE. The ruling is similar to a lower court ruling on PS MP James Hirvisaari’s hate speech conviction in June 2012.
Van Wonterghem said he would appeal the decision to the European Court of Human Rights.
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The city councilman commented on a blog entry written by Migrant Tales that he had no regrets about what he wrote in the summer of 2011. He wrote back then that it was a good matter that a Muslim woman would die since it would be one less person giving birth to a member of that religious group.
While it’s clear what van Wonterghem wrote is something he would most likely never say to a woman from his own national or ethnic group, his defiance and support from the PS is more than revealing. The excuses are an insult to any sensible person’s intelligence.
The PS of the region of Kymi played down the whole affair by stating that the councilman didn’t know how to express himself adequately in Finnish.
The Belgian-born naturalized Finn has lived in Finland for over 30 years.
Van Wonterghem knew exactly what he said and did it get national attention, which he succeeded.
The councilman, who is a Holocaust denier, played down the whole affair by stating that it was “only a sentence” and that he didn’t consider it offensive and/or racist, which it was.
A common excuse used by racists in Finland is that their comment was either taken out of context or that it was humor.
Van Wonterghem claims that his statement about killing a Muslim woman was “irony.”
The whole case is another example of how PS chairman Timo Soini has been forced to eat his words and promises on racism.
He said that any PS candidate that was convicted for ethnic agitation would be kicked out of the party.
First Soini claimed there were no racists, later “one, two or three,” and now his totally silent.