From Iceland — Icelandic Hate Site Might Be Illegal

Icelandic Hate Site Might Be Illegal

Published January 30, 2012

A website written in Icelandic and aimed at native Icelanders espouses racial segregation and white supremacy. However, Iceland has some very specific laws regarding such speech.
The website in question is bardaga.org. There, the author bemoans what they (there are no full names of anyone involved with writing for the site) see as the deterioration of the country due to immigrants. In particular, they seem to hate Africans most of all.
Icelandic law does not tolerate racism in any form. Section 233 of the Icelandic Penal Code states: “Anyone who in a ridiculing, slanderous, insulting, threatening or any other manner publicly assaults a person or a group of people on the basis of their nationality, skin colour, race, religion or sexual orientation, shall be fined or jailed for up to 2 years.” In this instance, “assault” does not necessarily mean physical violence, but can also mean language used.
Bardaga.org, while clearly aimed at Icelanders, has a server based in Chicago, and is registered to a one Donald Pauly. It is clear the authors of the site are in touch with racists in author countries, as Pauly has a page about him on the Southern Law Poverty Center’s website, where he is described as anti-immigrant racist based in Nevada, with a particular disdain for Mexicans.
Whether the site’s server location is a deliberate attempt to find a way around Icelandic hate speech law is not known, but as the site is written in Icelandic and addressed to Icelanders, in all likelihood the law still applies.

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