Europe: ‘speech crime’ and deportation

Abstract

Throughout Europe, reforms to immigration law are being introduced which effectively tie rights to citizenship and residence to limitations on freedom of speech; the penalty for breaching these is, increasingly, deportation. So far, these measures have only been applied to Muslims, usually religious leaders, held to have made inflammatory or offensive statements -! offences which could be dealt with under existing public order law. But the use of immigration legislation to deal with such issues bypasses the need for judicial transparency and overrides the rights of the accused. In the process, a separate, parallel justice system is set up which lacks any checks and balances on state power.