[Saline9515]

So you defend freedom of speech, but not for the people and the ideas you don't like. That's not freedom of speech, and you have a lot in common with Putinists on that matter.

They also sanction who they perceive as western assets, by the way. And see nothing wrong sending dissidents to jail with similar vague hate speech laws that we have in the EU [0]. In fact, they even eradicated their far-right! [1] Navalny was prosecuted because he was "extremist", for instance.

So how do you feel being in such ideological proximity with Putin's Russia? Just like others, you enjoy gloating about feel-good "values" but don't believe at all in them, which would require some discomfort and radicality.

[0] https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/freedom-and-restriction-s...

[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/12/16/the-death-of-t...

[lpcvoid]

Wake me up when we jail people for holding up blank signs [0] or for demonstrating for gay rights. You try so hard to paint the EU in the same unhinged way as the Kremlin, but all your comparisons don't survive scrutiny. I can go and stand in front of the Bundestag saying "I hate Friedrich Merz" and nothing will happen, in fact people will probably want selfies with me and the sign. Try that in Russia and see how fast you have OMON splintering your kneecaps.

As for your other points: Democracy must not fall to the Paradox of tolerance.

[0] https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-war-invasion-protest...

[Saline9515]

You are just arguing that Russia is applying censorship in a more harsher way than the EU, but the underlying negation of your self-proclaimed "values" is the same.

You cherry-pick an example: posting online or holding a sign with "Merz is a liar" would expose you to a lawsuit and jail. Just like saying the N word in private in France. You get jailed for crimes without a victim.

Each territory has forbidden speech: in many countries, for instance holocaust revisionism is forbidden and punished with jail sentences. It's tolerated to justify the murder of Palestinians, including in national media, of Jews, it isn't.

It's funny that you mention protests: French military police commonly kills or cripples protesters with semi-lethal weapons, and the government uses similar tactics as the Russian one to justify crackdowns (forbidding problematic protests).

The issue with such thinking is that, just as the frog in the kettle, the water will heat up and heat up as politicians increase their use of this very convenient tool, just like Putin did. Singapore is an advanced version of this, where problematic criticism of the government action is met with diffamation lawfare.

You can see this happening in Germany, with the drastic increase in lawsuits against the AFD, or diffamation against politicians. Same with the UK, which before was good example of spotless freedom of speech.

By the way, I hate to mention this but since you are German, I'd like to remind you that the Weimar republic had stringent hate speech laws and censorship. It didn't work at all. When will you start to learn?