04 January 2017

Finnish MP fined for anti-Muslim agitation on Facebook

Lawmaker Teuvo Hakkarainen from the nationalist Finns party was fined on Wednesday for a Facebook post calling for a Muslim-free Finland which a district court said amounted to agitation against an ethnic group.

Hakkarainen, whose party is part of the country's coalition government, made the call in a comment on the truck attack in France last July that killed 86 people. Prosecutors said the Tunisian-born driver had radical Islamist views.

"All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims," the parliamentarian wrote in the comment.

Central Finland's district court in Jyvaskyla imposed a 1,160 euro ($1,210) fine for Hakkarainen, who accepted the verdict. Local media quoted his assistant telling the court that the lawmaker was not aware of the legislation in question. [Reuters] Read more