Tag: hate speech

Catholic priest, 57, who pretended to be a 16-year-old skinhead to post in neo-Nazi chatrooms where he threatened to bomb mosques as part of a ‘sexual fetish’ is spared jail

A Catholic priest who posed as a 16-year-old skinhead in neo-Nazi chatrooms where he threatened to bomb mosques as part of his ‘sexual fetish’ has avoided jail. 

Father Mark Rowles, 57, posted under the name ‘skinheadlad1488’ in a racist chatroom called Aryan Reich Killers, where he wrote racist and offensive messages.

Rowles wrote several messages on Telegram, including one where he penned ‘bomb mosques’. 

The priest, who was based in St John Lloyd Catholic Church, in Cardiff, confessed to three counts of sending menacing or offensive messages using the Telegram app in May and June of 2024.  

On Thursday, Rowles was ordered to pay £199, carry out 150 hours of unpaid work, and was handed a three-year Criminal Behaviour Order.

The Catholic Church in Wales is understood to be undertaking a review into the matter, as a spokesperson confirmed the priest had been suspended and had not been in active ministry since the allegations emerged. 

A counter-terror probe into extreme right-wing activity online unearthed the 57-year-old’s actions, and he was later taken into custody. 

In one message, he used an extreme racial slur, adding: ‘They should all be strung up and shot.’ 

And when discussing the ethnicity of Londoners, he wrote: ‘A few bullets to their brains would help’ 

When he was arrested and interviewed by police, Rowles told officers he was not racist, but that he said he was lonely and had a ‘sexual fetish for role play’.

His profile picture showed a young white man with a face covering with a German flag and the words ‘right hand path always’, the court heard.

Prosecutor Rob Simkins said Rowles’ posts showed ‘hostility based on religion and race’.

Jacqui Seal, defending, said: ‘Clearly this is a disturbing case. Throughout his life in the Catholic Church he has never been the subject of a complaint or disciplinary action.

Keep reading

ECRI Pressures Ireland and Finland to Adopt New “Hate Speech” Laws and Speech Monitoring Systems

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) has issued another set of polite bureaucratic thunderbolts, this time aimed at Ireland and Finland, for not cracking down hard enough on their citizens’ conversations.

The group, operating under the Council of Europe, says both nations have been dragging their feet on what it calls “hate speech.”

In other words, they’re not censoring fast enough.

In Ireland’s case, ECRI was appalled to discover that the country’s “extremely limited” legal framework still leaves some room for public disagreement online.

The commission noted with concern that certain hate speech provisions were removed from the Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024, and urged Dublin to correct the oversight by writing new laws to target such expression.

The report didn’t stop there. It called for a national data system to document “racist and LGBTI-phobic bullying and violence in schools” and a “comprehensive data collection” program for hate crimes and hate speech.

It even floated the idea of regulating “election-related misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy,” which it deemed “critical to limit the spread of hateful ideas.”

So the plan is clear: build a bureaucracy that tracks words, ideas, and schoolyard insults, then hand election discourse over to regulatory authorities. What could go wrong?

ECRI did find time to congratulate Ireland for its National Action Plan Against Racism and inclusion programs for Roma and Traveller communities.

But after that brief applause, the hammer came back down. Hate speech, it concluded, remains “widespread.” More laws, more oversight, more policing of conversation.

Finland’s report read like a blueprint for speech management. ECRI announced that hate speech there “has increased and reached a critical level,” though it didn’t specify what exactly counts as hate speech, or how “critical” was measured.

The group praised Finnish police for maintaining “a regular presence in a web-based gaming platform” where officers act as “game police” and talk to young users about hate speech and online crime. It’s not satire, that’s in the official report.

ECRI proposed creating a national working group to design new policies against hate speech and advised police to unify their methods for “recognition, unmasking and official recording” of hate.

Schools, it said, should install systems to track “racist and LGBTI-phobic incidents,” while even non-criminal “hate incidents” should be formally recognized and logged.

Keep reading

Countries Call on the EU to Enforce “Values” Through Speech Rules

European governments are intensifying pressure on Brussels to tighten control over which organizations receive EU funding, using the language of “combating hate” to justify measures that could sharply restrict free expression.

France, Austria, and the Netherlands have jointly circulated a paper calling on the European Commission to withdraw financial support from any group that does not conform to “European values.”

The document, seen by Politico, urges member states to “redouble their efforts to combat racism, antisemitism, xenophobia and anti-Muslim hatred” and to ensure “no support is given to entities hostile to European values, in particular through funding.”

Behind the rhetoric of tolerance, the plan lays out a system that ties access to EU money directly to ideological loyalty.

Under the proposal, beneficiaries of programs such as Erasmus+ and CERV (Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values) would be required to sign pledges confirming that they “respect and promote EU rights and values.”

The Commission would also be instructed to apply existing budget rules that allow for excluding groups accused of “inciting hatred.”

The initiative arrives just ahead of a European Council meeting in Brussels, where leaders are set to discuss a range of topics, including Ukraine, migration, defense, and Europe’s digital and environmental goals.

A draft of the Council’s conclusions adds another layer by insisting that “EU values apply equally in the digital sphere,” with the “protection of minors” highlighted as a key aim.

What looks like a defense of European ideals increasingly resembles an effort to police opinions.

By expanding the concept of hate speech both online and offline, the document could allow EU institutions to label controversial or dissenting views as violations of European values. This would effectively hand Brussels the power to determine which voices are acceptable in public debate.

Keep reading

How the Free Speech Union Turned the Tide on Non-Crime Hate Incidents

As the Metropolitan Police announce the demise of non-crime hate incidents, the Telegraph has run a feature on the Free Speech Union, crediting its years of campaigning against NCHIs and support for cancel culture victims. Here’s an excerpt.

Sir Mark’s decision may well signal a wider turning of the tide on police investigations into “hate crime”. But the force’s decision to backtrack on Linehan’s case, and others like it, got only a lukewarm welcome from Linehan himself, who said he planned to continue his legal action against the Met.

That, however, is not because he has limitless pockets – cancel culture, he says, has cost him much of his lucrative writing gigs. Instead, his lawyers come courtesy of the Free Speech Union (FSU), the British campaign group set up to defend freedom of expression – be it from armed police, an overzealous student campus or HR managers intent on enforcing diversity policies.

Set up five years ago by the former journalist, Toby Young – now Lord Young, having been nominated for a life peerage by Kemi Badenoch last December – the organisation has handled more than 4,500 cases, from members of the public arrested over tweets deemed to be politically incorrect, to office workers disciplined for querying seminars on critical race theory.

For some clients, the FSU has simply won a written apology. But for others, it has secured a £500,000 payout at industrial tribunal.

If there’s one thing most cases have in common, according to Young, it is that they shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Linehan’s arrest, in which the Met acted “like the Stasi”, being a case in point.

“I think this statement from the Met shows that they have got fed up with this stuff – they recognise that the public want them to prioritise serious crimes like burglary, car theft and mugging,” says Young, who has called for all police forces in the country to follow Scotland Yard’s lead.

“I also think that in Linehan’s case, the police realised they’d been manipulated by a trans-rights activist who understood exactly how to weaponise the police guidance on investigating hate crime incidents, and to turn the police into an enforcement wing for their own agendas.”

Young is referring to Lynsey Watson, a transgender ex-police officer who is understood to have reported Linehan to the police over his social media posts, one of which read: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.”

Keep reading

Canada’s AG Claims Anti-“Hate” Law Isn’t About Censorship

Governments around the world have a long history of introducing laws that restrict speech while insisting they are not acts of censorship.

Each new proposal is framed as a measure to promote safety, combat misinformation, or protect vulnerable communities, yet the result is often the same: expanded state authority over what citizens can say or share.

Now Canada’s Attorney General Sean Fraser is attempting to reassure Canadians that the federal government’s new hate speech legislation, Bill C-9, is not a disguised attempt to police online expression.

The proposal, already facing strong opposition from free expression advocates, introduces new “hate-related” offenses and expands police powers over what is labeled “hatred” in the Criminal Code.

Fraser told MPs that the government is not seeking to criminalize internet activity that is currently legal.

“We should recognize there are many acts we may find offensive that do not constitute hate for the purpose of the Criminal Code,” he said during his appearance before the Commons justice committee.

He insisted the bill’s purpose is not censorship, even as he confirmed that its provisions would apply equally to speech on the internet and in public spaces.

The legislation, officially titled An Act To Amend The Criminal Code (Combatting Hate Act), also bans the display of Nazi and Hamas symbols that are deemed to promote hatred, makes it an offense to obstruct religious or cultural ceremonies, and rewrites how “hatred” is defined.

The bill frames it as “the emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than disdain or dislike.”

Free speech advocates have warned that this rewording lowers the legal bar by abandoning the Supreme Court’s requirement that hatred must be “an emotion of an intense and extreme nature.”

Fraser responded that any online statement would only be subject to prosecution if it already met the threshold for hate propaganda under existing law. “The only circumstance where you could imagine some online comment attracting scrutiny under this law would attach to behavior that is criminal today but is punished less severely,” he told the committee.

Keep reading

Newsom Vetoes Digital Censorship Law

California Governor Gavin Newsom managed to get something right. He just vetoed a bill that would have allowed people to sue social-media companies on the subjective and dubious basis of “hate speech.”

Newsom vetoed SB 771 on Monday, the last day he had to act. The legislature sent him the bill on September 22. If Newsom wouldn’t have rejected it, it would have become law anyway.

The governor called the bill “premature” in a short statement attempting to explain his decision. He said:

“I likewise share the author’s concern about the growth of discriminatory threats, violence, and coercive harassment online. I am concerned, however, that this bill is premature. Our first step should be to determine if, and to what extent, existing civil rights laws are sufficient to address violations perpetrated through algorithms.”

The Bill

The bill would have allowed people to sue social-media companies for up to $1 million per violation. If the litigant was a minor, the fine could’ve doubled.

However, critics suspected the proposal’s main goal was to coerce social-media companies into implementing censorious algorithms like the ones they did during the height of the Covid era. It was designed to pre-censor, to create an digital environment where certain views were forbidden.

The proposal included subjective and vague justifications for litigation. As we pointed out in a previous report, it included the feeling of “intimidation” as grounds for suing. In the United Kingdom, officers have justified arresting people for over social-media posts that caused others “anxiety.” It’s not hard to see that’s what SB 771 could’ve opened up.

Opposition and Support

The bill had strong opposition, including from NetChoice, the tech trade group made up of Google, Meta, and Snap. Elon Musk’s X and Parler also opposed it. Among the arguments they made was that SB 771 would have violated First Amendment protections.

Right-leaning pundits also bashed the proposal for its totalitarian potential. Tucker Carlson framed it as an attempt by California’s ruling class to quash online criticism of the policies that have destroyed the most populous and beautiful state in the Union. The proposal designated a protected class that would have censored those who spoke out against illegal immigration, the deviancy of the LGBTQ mob, and critics of Islam or Israel.  

On the other hand, George Soros’ Center for Countering Digital Hate was sold on the bill, the propagandists in the mainstream media did their best to frame it as nothing more than digital companion to already existing civil-rights protection law, and more than a dozen Jewish organizations supported it as well, according to reports.

Newsom’s Motivation

Newsom made a rare and good decision here. But it’s unlikely his intentions were well-motivated. After all, he did just sign a bill to create a reparations-administration agency.  

A common suspicion is that Newsom was hardly concerned about free speech and likely more worried about having to embark on future political campaigns without financial support from the tech gurus who’ve dumped millions into his previous campaigns, including executives from Google and Meta.

Whatever his motivation, the bottom line is that this is good news for Californians and anyone who believes that the digital world should be open to all ideas, not just those approved by the elites. As we pointed out in a previous report on this bill, social media, despite its many faults and foibles, has “democratized” the flow of information and loosened the elites’ long-held grip on the narrative. This is a major reason there have been so many efforts to restrict online speech. If you want to see what the goal for the United States is, just look at various parts of Europe. The European Union is bullying member states to muzzle their citizens and creating laws to target American tech companies that provide the platforms to exchange ideas that threaten the international oligarch class.

Keep reading

Ireland Rejects EU Hate-speech Dictate

The deadline to bow down to the European Union’s “hate speech” dictate has passed, and Ireland remains defiant. Last week, the country’s minister for justice, Jim O’Callaghan, said the government would not “reintroduce hate speech legislation previously rejected by parliament,” even though the EU continues to pressure them to do so.

“I’m fairly satisfied Ireland has transposed the European Council framework decision on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia in a manner appropriate and tailored to domestic law,” O’Callaghan said, according to reports.

In June, the EU told Ireland it had a two months left to comply with its censorship dictate or risk being dragged into international court. Ireland is accused of violating laws outlined in the EU’s 2008 EU Framework Decision, which requires member states to criminalize “hate speech” based on race, color, religion, descent, or ethnicity, as well as on Holocaust denial. Supposedly, the law is intended to prevent the incitement of violence.

But, as we recently reported, the idea of “hate speech” is a ploy for brainwashing people into believing that thoughts by themselves can be crimes.

Irish officials believe they already have sufficient laws to address the EU’s concerns without intruding on free speech. The “Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989” punishes those who incite hatred based on characteristics such as race, religion, or nationality. According to the Irish Courts Service, five convictions have been recorded under the act since 2017.

But EU officials say that the legislation is not good enough.

Keep reading

FREEDOM WINS: Irish Government Informs European Union That It Will Not Introduce Globalist ‘Hate Speech’ Laws

‘Free speech’ – no ‘hate speech’.

As Margaret Flavin reported on TGP last June, Ireland is holding the line for freedom against the European Union goons who wish to insert harmful legislation on every nation in the old continent.

The EU Court of Justice has warned Ireland that it has until August to comply with the ‘hate speech’ laws (a.k.a. censure).

Under existing EU rules on combating racism and xenophobia, the European Commission believes Ireland is allegedly uncompliant with laws ‘criminalizing race-based violence and hatred’.

August, of course, has come and gone, so today, on the Daíl (Irish Parliament), in a session scheduled for questions to the Minister of Justice Jim O’Callaghan, the issue was debated.

Breaking!

The Irish government has informed the EU they will not comply with a demand to force hate speech laws on the public.

Hugely significant moment for free speech. pic.twitter.com/hbgN4RrxNH

— MichaeloKeeffe (@Mick_O_Keeffe) October 9, 2025

“MP: ‘Is it your intention to reintroduce the hate speech legislation that was a dramatic failure in the last government and proposed by the previous Minister for Justice?’

Justice Minister: ‘The answer is no. But can I just give you an overview as to why the answer is no? I’m fairly satisfied that Ireland has transposed the European Council framework decision on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia in a manner appropriate and tailored to the domestic system of law in Ireland.’

Justice Minister: ‘I want to assure Members of the House that Ireland’s position has been communicated to the European Commission and our position is that the framework decision is fully transposed in Irish legislation in a manner that is appropriate and tailored to Ireland’s domestic system of criminal law and procedure.’

Justice Minister: ‘And is in line of course with Article 40.6 of the Constitution which expressly respects and protects the rights to freedom of expression and people to express their views freely.”

This confirmation comes a few days after the Donald J. Trump administration asking the Irish Government ‘to urge the European Union to allow member states to address hate speech as each sees fit’.

Keep reading

California “Hate Speech” Bill Would Crush Dissent

If enacted and it somehow clears legal challenges, California Senate Bill 771 will be the first online censorship law of its kind in America. It would also likely pave a path for other states run by people with no tolerance for dissent.    

On September 22, the California Legislature sent SB 771 to Governor Gavin Newsom. He has until October 13 to sign it. If he doesn’t veto or sign the proposal, it becomes law anyway.

Mainstream media outlets claim that SB 771 “targets social media platforms for the role they could play in aiding and abetting in hate crimes by pushing content that could lead to a hate crime.”

The bill allows people to sue social-media companies for up to $1 million per violation. If the litigant is a minor, the fine could double.

Tucker Carlson’s analysis of the bill is more accurate than the mainstream media’s. Carlson:

That’s a censorship law.… The state of California, under Gavin Newsom, is about to — we think — censor the opinions of Americans, not to protect anybody, but to shield themselves from criticism so they continue to do what they want to do in secret.

Coerced Censorship

The bill uses broad terms that make it easy to justify censorship. It reads:

California law prohibits all persons and entities, including corporations, from engaging in, aiding, abetting, or conspiring to commit acts of violence, intimidation, or coercion based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, or other protected characteristics.

Merriam Webster defines “intimidated” as “to make timid or fearful.” Synonyms include “bully” and “frighten.” Fear and intimidation are subjective emotions that have significantly increased among America’s younger and more unstable generations. People are swimming in pools of victimhood and mental illness today. We constantly hear about a spike in anxiety. What happens when we create laws that allow litigation on the basis of largely subjective emotions?

But the more likely primary intent here is to coerce social-media companies into pre-censoring. The senior vice president of social-media company Parler, Elise Pierotti, said of the bill:

SB 771 isn’t about protecting civil rights, it’s California’s brazen attempt to export its one-party censorship regime to every corner of the internet. This bill hands Sacramento the power to bully platforms into preemptively scrubbing dissent on everything from border security to parental rights. We’ve seen Big Tech abuse vague “hate speech” rules to throttle conservatives for years, including shutting down our platform in 2021; now, lawmakers want to make it mandatory with teeth-shattering fines. This must be stopped before it buries the First Amendment.

Shoshana Weissmann, director of digital media at the R Street Institute, also suspects this is the drafter’s main agenda. She told the Daily Caller that “rather than risk liability for showing users content one could argue (even if it doesn’t actually) violate a law, platforms will over-moderate and remove posts in order to stay out of court.”

Keep reading

California’s Vague ‘Hate Speech’ Bill Would Force Big Tech To Censor Mainstream Conservative Views

alifornia lawmakers are once again leading the charge — not toward progress, but toward repression. Their latest move, Senate Bill 771 (SB-771), is being packaged as a bold stand against “hate” on social media. In reality, it’s a direct assault on the free expression and constitutionally protected speech of ministries, minority groups, and faith-based organizations.

The bill would force Big Tech to remove content that could be interpreted as “harassment” or “intimidation” based on race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and more — or face financially devastating lawsuits.

If Gov. Gavin Newsom signs this bill into law as expected, it will become one of the most dangerous speech-restricting laws in the country. Cloaked in the language of civil rights, SB-771 is built to punish dissent from progressive orthodoxy.

The target is anyone who dares to speak publicly about values or perspectives that conflict with the state’s ever-expanding list of protected identities. In practice, this means community groups sharing discussions on traditional family structures, cultural views on gender roles, or advocacy for certain social issues may find themselves silenced — not by law enforcement, but by tech giants eager to avoid legal risk.

The bills says:

California law prohibits all persons and entities, including corporations, from engaging in, aiding, abetting, or conspiring to commit acts of violence, intimidation, or coercion based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, or other protected characteristics.

 3273.73. (a) A social media platform that violates Section 51.7, 51.9, 52, or 52.1 through its algorithms that relay content to users or aids, abets, acts in concert, or conspires in a violation of any of those sections, or is a joint tortfeasor in a violation of any of those sections, shall, in addition to any other remedy, be liable to a prevailing plaintiff for a civil penalty for each violation sufficient to deter future violations but not to exceed the following:

(1) For an intentional, knowing, or willful violation, a civil penalty of up to one million dollars

(2) For a reckless violation, a civil penalty of up to five hundred thousand dollars.


This language may appear just, but its sweeping terms — “intimidation,” “coercion,” even “aiding” — are dangerously vague. In the hands of ideologically motivated actors, they can be weaponized to silence constitutionally protected discourse under the guise of enforcing civil rights.

That’s the chilling brilliance of SB-771: it outsources censorship to the private sector under threat of state-enforced financial ruin. The law doesn’t need to directly ban speech — it just makes the cost of hosting it too high for Big Tech to tolerate. This will especially impact small ministries, minority-led organizations, and faith-based nonprofits with limited legal or technical resources. For them, one flagged post — perhaps a cultural reference taken out of context — could mean being shadow-banned or deplatformed altogether.

Keep reading