united-states european-union first-amendment comparative-law
In which European countries is illegal to publicly state an opinion that in the US would be protected by the first amendment?
<p>I often heard that the US are somehow exceptional in the freedom of speech that they provide to their citizens via the first amendment. However, I never saw an actual comparison with, say, European countries.</p>
<p>My question is: In which European country, is it illegal (for a citizen of that European country) to publicly state an opinion that in the US would be protected the first amendment?</p>
<p>Is there somewhere a list with such comparison?</p>

<p>Almost every European nation has a &quot;hate speech&quot; law that makes the use of offensive bigoted words of phrases illegal.  The U.S. does not have any such laws, and the First Amendment makes such laws unconstitutional.</p>
<p>The closest the U.S. can get are laws criminalizing &quot;Hate Crimes&quot; which are ordinary crimes which were motivated in part or in whole by the victim's actual or perceived protected class status.</p>
<p>Other specific examples as mentioned in comments, are that Germany has strict laws about advocacy of Nazi ideology.  This is completely legal in the United States.  Nazi ideology is not popular in the U.S. by any means, but it's allowed to be advocated for because of the strong Freedom of Speech Laws in the United States.</p>
<p>In other regards, while U.S. Law is fairly similar to U.K. Law (you have to get into weeds about the differences), it is way more difficult to sue for defamation in U.S. than in the U.K.  For starters, the U.S. has the &quot;Public Person&quot; rule which requires that any defamation about a person who is largely known to the public (politicians and celebrities largely) must prove Actual Malice Or Reckless Disregard for the Truth (I.E. You didn't even do the basic research into the statement) in order to prove defamation.   But there's also the matter of the burden of proof.  In the U.K. the speaker of the alleged defamation must prove in court that the statement was not defamatory.  In the U.S., all legal challenges to are &quot;protected speech&quot; until proven otherwise in a court of law.  This means that even with the &quot;Public Person&quot; rule set aside, the statement's original speaker need not prove that their speech is truthful, and the burden's on the accuser of defamation to prove it.</p>
<p>Edit:</p>
<p>Additional Info based on comments, but &quot;Protected Speech&quot; is a legal term used in the U.S. that defines speech that is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States as opposed to commercial speech, which is speech used to make advertise or to further commerce and is restricted, and unprotected speech, which is speech that can land one in trouble.  While the list of types of speech is long, every form of speech restriction is very very narrowly tailored.   &quot;Hate Speech&quot;, which would be the utterance of words or phrases that can be offensive to people of a protected class (a characteristic that is beyond the individuals control).  &quot;Hate Crimes&quot; are not necessarily spoken during the commission of the crime, but rather can be charged in addition to the crime.  Suppose a serial killer was killing people of a certain race, this is not enough for police to go on because most serial killers target victims that meet a physical description (same skin color, same hair color, same gender).  Once the killer is captured, police search his apartment and find a manifesto where the killer admits that he is selecting his target because he believes people of this protected class are subhuman and thus his superior nature gives him the right to kill them, this would show that the killings were motivated out of hatred, and thus qualify as a hate crime.  The way he phrases this may be purely academic and use in offensive language OR it could be laden with all manner of crass slurs.  It doesn't matter... what he <strong>said</strong> is protected speech but what he <strong>did</strong> is... well... to quote Guardians of the Galaxy... is &quot;murder... on of the worst crimes of all. So also illegal.&quot;</p>
<p>Hate crimes criminalize crimes that are motivated by hatred... they do not criminalize speech that is hateful.</p>

<h2>The US <em>believes</em> it's exceptional about freedom of speech</h2>
<p>It isn't; it's just <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-03-19/free-speech-in-europe-isn-t-what-americans-think" rel="noreferrer">different</a>.</p>
<p>For example, a European employer may ban the hijab <em>providing</em> they ban all other visible signs of political, philosophical or religious beliefs. So, no hijab but also no crucifixes, yarmulkes, national flags, MAGA caps, or &quot;I think, therefore I am&quot; T-shirts.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And herein lies the key philosophical difference. U.S. law, following the logic of the Constitution and American legal culture, considers religious freedom a fundamental right that shouldn’t be violated except under exceedingly rare conditions.</p>
<p>In Europe, by contrast, the freedom to believe may be protected, but the freedom to manifest your religion publicly has much less purchase, especially if you’re a Muslim. Left and center-left Europeans are often willing to see the hijab restricted because they see it as sexist and coercive. And right-wingers frequently see the hijab as a symbol of militant Islam and cultural pollution by immigrants.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Europeans value free speech; by some measures more than <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-freedom-of-speech" rel="noreferrer">Americans</a>. In this World Democracy study, the US ranked equal 27th. Of the 26 ahead of it, 19 are European; the other 7 are countries settled by Europeans in the last 500 years: Uruguay, New Zealand, Canada, Argentina, Jamaica, Costa Rica, and Barbados (that's 2 Oceaniac and 5 American by continent for those keeping score - where are the African and Asian nations one wonders).</p>
<p>They just draw the lines differently. For example, in none of those 30 countries would it be legal to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater" rel="noreferrer">shout &quot;Fire!&quot; in a crowded theatre</a> (literally, not in the hypothetical mentioned in the case) and all of them have laws against defamation, however, what <em>counts</em> as defamation varies considerably. All countries have laws against fraud which effectively limits free speech. Perhaps the biggest difference in philosophy surrounds <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/hate-speech-is-not-free-speech-says-secretary-general-ahead-of-human-rights-day" rel="noreferrer">hate speech</a>. In Europe:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hate speech is an abuse of freedom of expression.</p>
<p>We are free to express ourselves, even to the extent that our opinion may offend, shock or disturb others. But not everything is acceptable as free speech. The moment people start publicly inciting to violence, hostility or discrimination against a group of persons, then this is hate speech not free speech.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In contrast, in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/07/no-theres-no-hate-speech-exception-to-the-first-amendment/" rel="noreferrer">USA</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) are just as protected under the First Amendment as other ideas. One is as free to condemn Islam — or Muslims, or Jews, or blacks, or whites, or illegal aliens, or native-born citizens — as one is to condemn capitalism or Socialism or Democrats or Republicans.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The European position is in line with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech#Hate_speech_laws" rel="noreferrer">International Law</a>; the USA isn't:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Article 20(2) of the ICCPR prohibits national, religious, or racial hatred that incites violence, discrimination, or hostility.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The reason for this difference is <strong>cultural</strong> and long-standing.</p>
<p>The USA, is a colonist nation, settled by people who, for one reason or another, decided to risk their lives to leave where they were and go where they weren't - such people are, in general, non-conformist. They see free speech as an individual right; a <em>personal</em> right to say what they want. If that includes saying they hate certain minorities (or majorities for that matter), or more precisely, that people <em>should</em> hate those groups, that's OK.</p>
<p>The European nations, on the other hand, spent most of the 20th century (and the 17th, 18th and 19th for that matter) either under the control of repressive authoritarian regimes or directly threatened by them. They see free speech as a bulwark against repression; a <em>collective</em> right to speak out against injustice. Expressing hatred toward minorities <em>is</em> injustice.</p>
<p>These are fundamentally incompatible views. As an illustration, the US Declaration of Independence says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, <strong>the merciless Indian Savages</strong>, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In many European nations, the bolded part is illegal hate speech.</p>

<p>Insulting opinions can be actionable defamation in the United Kingdom. In <a href="https://lawcarenigeria.com/berkoff-v-burchill-anor-1996-ewca-civ-564-31st-july-1996/" rel="noreferrer"><em>Berkoff v Burchill &amp; Anor</em> [1996]</a>, for instance, a reporter wrote that an actor in The Frankenstein Chronicles was &quot;only marginally better-looking&quot; than Frankenstein's monster.</p>
<p>Germany also has a <a href="https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p1812" rel="noreferrer">law against insults</a> that would be quite infirm under the First Amendment. <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-germany-insult-law-snap-story.html" rel="noreferrer"><em>The Los Angeles Times</em></a> wrote a good piece illustrating how it can be used:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A Berlin court awarded one person 8,190 euros in 2011 for insults published against him in social media; in a 2012 case, a trainee who made disparaging remarks about her boss on Facebook had to pay 2,500 euros in damages. A student accepted a 5,000 euro out-of-court settlement in 2013 for racist remarks made in a rap song about him posted on YouTube.</p>
<p>Gulden said there are many classic insults that can land you in court, provided there is a witness or some record that they were used: “old Nazi,” “fascist,” “pig,” “Scheiss Bulle” (an insult for police) or “Krueppel” (cripple).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>All of these cases should have been thrown out under the First Amendment if they had been brought in an American court.</p>

<p>A Norwegian woman, Christina Ellingsen, currently faces up to <a href="https://www.feministcurrent.com/2022/07/22/christina-ellingsen-is-facing-prison-time-for-saying-that-men-cant-be-women/" rel="noreferrer">3 years in prison</a> for the following statement:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Why [does] FRI teach young people that males can be lesbians? Isn’t
that conversion therapy?”</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“You are a man. You cannot be a mother.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>§185 of the Norwegian Penal Code prohibits against “discriminatory or hateful statements on the basis of gender identity or gender expression.”, and people have been jailed for similar offenses in the past.</p>

<p>The <a href="https://www.ejtn.eu/PageFiles/6533/Criminal%20Code%20of%20the%20Czech%20Republic.pdf" rel="noreferrer">Criminal Code of Czechia</a> (Chapter X, section 365) provides that &quot;whoever publically approves of a committed criminal offense [...] shall be sentenced to imprisonment for up to one year.&quot;</p>
<p>(discovered by me in <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/a/78247">this answer by Trish</a> on this site.)</p>

<p>In some European jurisdictions there are laws against or more strict than the USA about:</p>
<p>criminal proceedings, court reporting, reporting juror/jury interviews</p>
<p>defamation</p>
<p>threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour</p>
<p>blasphemy, religious insult</p>
<p>hate speech</p>
<p>Holocaust denial or revisionism-tantamount-to-denial</p>
<p>the display of Nazi emblems/insignia/symbols, 'Hitler salutes'</p>
<p>glorifying or encouraging terrorism</p>
<p>Some jurisdictions have broad &quot;public order&quot; law that can be used to inhibit speech too.</p>
<p>The GDPR provides for the right of erasure aka 'the right to be forgotten', which can be used to have information removed from public-facing websites.</p>
<hr />
<p>Compare the words of the First Amendment with the main European equivalent, Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 10 is an explicitly 'qualified' right, meaning it has caveats or exceptions; whatever one thinks about where the line is drawn in practice, it's obvious that the text is not as aspirationally absolute as the First Amendment.</p>
<p><strong>First Amendment</strong></p>
<p>Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.</p>
<p><strong>Article 10</strong></p>
<ol>
<li><p>Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.</p>
</li>
<li><p>The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.</p>
</li>
</ol>

<p>I don't want to offer a full answer, but more of a framework for thinking about differences between EU and US law, particularly on areas of free speech.</p>
<p>In the U.S., freedom of speech is seen as an absolute right. It is enshrined in the constitution, and has few real limits on its scope.</p>
<p>In contrast, the EU right to freedom of speech is connected more widely with &quot;freedom of expression&quot;, and is seen as a balancing act between other freedoms contained in the european convention on human rights. For example, speech that is likely to cause harm (yelling fire in a crowded theatre, for example) or directly conflict with other rights can be restricted. This would, for example, be the basis of restrictions on, say, hate speech - for example, your freedom to engage in trans or homophobic speech might directly conflict with my right to both freedom of expression and right to respect of my private and family life.</p>
<p>This makes actually answering your question almost impossible, because it tries to impose the relatively narrow, absolute, US definition of free speech onto the much broader freedom of expression principle in EU law, which can't be separated from the much broader, again, charter on human rights. EU law generally accepts that it is not possible to separate out rights, but that things such as employment, privacy etc all play a part in your ability to practically exercise your rights.</p>

<p>There are laws in the UK against speech that encourages terrorists. See <a href="https://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/terrorism" rel="noreferrer">https://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/terrorism</a></p>
<p>Collecting information that is one the internet, viewing terrorist materials, stating any support for the aims of terrorists.</p>

<p>There's a somewhat controversial article in Polish Penal Code, describing insulting the religious feelings of another as a crime.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Art. 196. [Insulting religious feelings]</p>
<p>Whoever offends the religious feelings of other people by publicly insulting an object of religious worship or a place intended for the public performance of religious rites, shall be subject to a fine, the penalty of restriction of liberty or the penalty of deprivation of liberty for up to 2 years.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>From <a href="https://sip.lex.pl/akty-prawne/dzu-dziennik-ustaw/kodeks-karny-16798683/art-196" rel="noreferrer">lex.pl</a>, translated with Google.</p>
<p>What is of note is that in Poland not all crimes are prosecuted automatically. Some are pursued only if the victim decides to sue. Art. 196 is prosecuted automatically. As a counterpoint, criminal defamation is only prosecuted if the victim so wishes.</p>
<p>I'm not familiar enough with the US law to say if it would be a crime there, but I highly doubt it.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law" rel="noreferrer">Looking at Wikipedia</a>, there were quite a few blasphemy laws in Europe, although many were repealed in late 20th century or in 21st.</p>
<p>P.S.</p>
<p>It has been pointed out to me that, viewing politically, neither Belarus nor Russia is really counted as part of Europe. But Hungary is, and it also has a history of suppressing free speech.</p>

<p>While theoretically many countries on the European continent have &quot;freedom of expression as long as no other laws are violated&quot; laws on their books, these are extremely limited compared to the US version of &quot;freedom of speech&quot;, and do not protect people from prosecution if the expression violates any other laws.</p>
<p>This strange construct makes &quot;freedom of expression&quot; subordinate with respect to many other laws, such as hate speech, holocaust denial, incitement of hatred etc., or even insults or disparaging remarks.</p>
<p>As an example, Germany has very broad anti-hate speech laws. These laws, codified in <a href="https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/130.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">§ 130 of the criminal code</a> (Volksverhetzung), penalize inciting hatred against protected groups with 3 month to 5 years in prison.</p>
<p>Controversially, you can also be sentenced to up to 5 years in prison for denying the holocaust:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>(3) Anyone who publicly approves, denies or trivializes an act of the
kind referred to in § 6 (1) of the International Criminal Code
committed under the rule of National Socialism in a manner that is
likely to disturb the public peace shall be punished with imprisonment
of up to five years or with a fine.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While these laws might seem reasonable to some, they are used in a very broad an indiscriminate manner, often against the political opposition.</p>
<p>Prosecutors in Germany are not independent and are bound by orders from the Secretary of Justice, who can order to prosecute a person or to drop a prosecution, this is why the <a href="https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2019-05/cp190068en.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">European Court of Justice ruled in 2019</a>: &quot;German public prosecutor's offices do not provide a sufficient guarantee of independence from the executive for the purposes of issuing a European arrest warrant.&quot;</p>
<p>This prosecutorial discretion is often used to interpret anti hate-speech laws in a manner that goes far beyond the spirit of the law.</p>
<p>As an example, here is a picture taken during a <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/corona-demos-verdacht-der-volksverhetzung-bei-nuernberger-protesten-a-f79e031f-6b73-43a6-b0dc-fd2cde2d7200" rel="nofollow noreferrer">protest</a> against mandatory Covid vaccinations. The sign reads &quot;Impfung macht frei&quot;, &quot;Vaccination makes you free&quot;. This is an allusion to the infamous slogan &quot;Arbeit macht frei&quot; set over the entrance to Auschwitz concentration camp.
<a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/I8gOX.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/I8gOX.png" alt="Anti vaccination protest" /></a></p>
<p>Bad taste or not, carrying such a sign is a felony in Germany that can and will be prosecuted, even though it is pretty clear that the protestors neither try to incite hate against protected groups, nor do they try to deny or trivialize the Holocaust. Yet, people have been routinely charged with &quot;Incitement of Hatred&quot; for these signs, which carries potential prison sentences up to 5 years.</p>
<p>Here are two recent examples of people being prosecuted for &quot;Impfen will free you&quot; signs in Germany and Austria. These are not rare cases, such prosecutions are very common and are also widely publicized:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Man charged with Volksverhetzung &quot;Incitement of hatred&quot;, by Munich chief prosecutor. The man posted a picture on FB that showed Auschwitz concentration camp with the words &quot;Arbeit macht frei&quot; Above this a drawing &quot;Impfen macht frei&quot; and a series of black uniformed with big syringes. His home has been raided by the police who confiscated his PC and his cell phone, and he faces <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&amp;sl=auto&amp;tl=en&amp;u=https://www.lto.de/recht/presseschau/p/2021-07-26-impfgegner-sta-unabhngigkeit-luftfilter/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">up to 5 years in prison</a>.</p>
</li>
<li><p>A case from Austria: A women carried a sign &quot;vaccination will set you free&quot; and a picture of Hitler made to look like the Terminator with the slogan &quot;I'll be back&quot;. She was sentenced to <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&amp;sl=auto&amp;tl=en&amp;u=https://theworldnews.net/at-news/impfen-macht-frei-bedingte-haftstrafe-fur-covid-demonstrantin" rel="nofollow noreferrer">one year in prison, suspended over 3 years</a>. <strong>This was considered a very light (!) sentence, she could have been sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.</strong> Many cases like this have been reported in the news, which certainly creates a chilling effect.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Such a sign would be a protected speech in the US and many Americans would be quite surprised that someone can be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for doing nothing but carrying a harmless sign in public.</p>
<p>Another specialty of German law is that insults, which at best might be a civil matter in other countries, are treated as crimes.</p>
<p>In Germany, an insult or a disparaging remark is a criminal offense that can send you to <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-germany-insult-law-snap-story.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">prison for up to a year</a>. People are routinely convicted for the most laughable insults, which can be as little as not using the formal form of address 'Du'/'Thou' instead of 'Sie'/'You'.</p>
<p>Even though not under specific protection, police officers are known to press charges for any perceived insult. Typical punishments for e.g. tipping the finger to your forehead are in the range of 20-30 days of net income. A more serious insult, such as &quot;asshole&quot;, can get you fined 70 days of your net income, a potentially very large amount of money.</p>
<p>Every year the police <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beleidigung_(Deutschland)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">registers</a> more than 200000 total cases of insults (not all against the police). <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/4Yfos.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/4Yfos.png" alt="Insult statistics" /></a>,</p>
<p>of which they resolve (i.e. were able to determine at least one suspect) <a href="https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/152634/umfrage/entwicklung-der-polizeilichen-aufklaerungsquoten-bei-beleidigungen-seit-1995/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">close to 90%</a>. This shows that insults, a crime that does not exist in the US, are taken very seriously by law enforcement.</p>
<p>While in the US public figures, such as politicians, have less protection, this is not the case in Germany. Recently, someone was charged with the crime of insulting someone for <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&amp;sl=auto&amp;tl=en&amp;u=https://jurios.de/2021/09/10/hausdurchsuchung-wegen-der-aussage-du-bist-so-1-pimmel/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">tweeting &quot;you are 1 weeny&quot;</a> about a local politician. The charge would have carried a sentence up to one year in prison and was deemed serious enough for the police to raid the home of the offender and confiscate all of his electronic devices.</p>
<p>Germany has specific laws on the book against insulting politicians, such as § 90 of the criminal code ('Making disparaging remarks about the President'), which carries a prison sentence of up to 5 years.</p>
<p>There is also § 188 ('Insult, defamation and defamation directed against persons in political life'), which increases the penalties for insults and defamation substantially:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>(1) If an insult (section 185) is committed publicly, in a meeting or
by disseminating content (section 11 subsection 3) against a person
involved in the political life of the people for reasons connected
with the position of the offended person in public life, and if the
act is likely to make his public work considerably more difficult, the penalty is imprisonment for up to three years or a fine. The political life of the people reaches up to the municipal level.</p>
<p>(2) Under the same conditions, defamation (Section 186) shall be
punished with imprisonment from three months to five years and
defamation (Section 187) shall be punished with imprisonment from six
months to five years.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such laws seem draconian from an American first amendment perspective and show that, while theoretically Germans might theoretically enjoy some limited &quot;freedom of expression&quot;, this right is not worth much in practice.</p>
<p>On the other hand, many Germans would disagree and see their system as superior to the American one, as it offers much stronger protection against insults and defamation by making them criminal offenses.</p>

<p>Some of this is historical. Most of the Bill of Rights was a reaction against laws in Europe at the time (specifically, in England under George III). So things like freedom of religion and freedom to criticize the government. In modern times of course European countries largely allow all of those things, but you can still see some differences from that... For example the US is still more permissive in <em>how</em> you are allowed to criticize the government.</p>
<p>Flag burning. In many European countries, e.g. France, Germany, it is <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/flag-desecration-laws" rel="nofollow noreferrer">illegal to burn (or sometimes disrespect) the flag</a> (although actual enforcement varies). In the US, it is federally protected as free speech.</p>
<p>Many European countries have specific laws against <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se-majest%C3%A9" rel="nofollow noreferrer">insulting dignitaries</a> such as royalty, head of state, etc., as well as harsher punishments for defamation against those people. In the US, insulting public figures is federally protected free speech and the bar for defamation against public figures is actually higher.</p>

<p>In the UK the human rights act protects freedom of speech such that the state cannot limit opinions unless they are racially hateful. It is surprisingly thorough in its reach, with the impressively thoughtful section 29J inserted by the otherwise troubling racial and religious hatred act 2006 into part 3a of the public order act 1986 included to effectively neuter the religious hatred offences. However: an interesting aspect that has taken form in the UK can be seen where the equality act leaves space for the state through its judiciary to explicitly designate certain opinions (like veganism, for example, but not transphobic sentiments) &quot;worthy of respect in a democratic society&quot; for the purpose of deciding what types of beliefs are or aren't protected characteristics for the purposes of anti discrimination protection. I find this type of presumptuousness by the state very troubling and yet for the reason of the first amendment this would never fly in the USA.</p>

<p>In Latvia, it is a non-criminal offense to display symbols of Nazi Germany or the USSR during a public gathering, with certain exceptions like artistic expression. So something like a picket with Soviet flags and &quot;glory to USSR&quot; posters would be illegal, as would be a public gathering with people dressed in SS uniforms.</p>
<p>It is a criminal offense to publicly call for genocide, or to publicly support war crimes or crimes against humanity, past or present. These criminal offenses have lately gained additional attention due to Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, and several Latvians are currently under criminal investigation for public statements supporting Russia's actions.</p>

<p>In Italy <a href="https://www.brocardi.it/codice-penale/libro-secondo/titolo-i/capo-ii/art278.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">article 278 of the Penal Code</a> provides that &quot;whoever offends the honor or the prestige of the President shall be imprisoned from a minimum of one to a maximum of five years&quot;.</p>
