More On Seppo Lehto

Infidel Bloggers Alliance writer Seppo Lehto has been sentenced to prison for inciting racial hatred.

I'm usually pretty careful about who I invite to post here. I have never seen anything by Lehto which indicates that he is a racist, or that he is dangerous. I have seen and read of things done by European governments which do indicate that they have fascist leanings when it comes to free speech.

Therefore, I believe there is nothing wrong with Lehto. Even though Gates of Vienna says,

As was pointed out by several commenters at the time, Mr. Lehto is not the
most appealing poster child for freedom of expression.Unfortunately, one can’t
choose only the most noble and upstanding people as defendants in civil
liberties cases.

When it comes to the suppression of free speech, authorities are more
likely to pick off the stragglers — the unpopular, unpleasant, and unattractive
media personalities who inhabit the fringes of public discourse.Seppo Lehto is
one such character, and now he has just been convicted and sentenced for
inciting ethnic hatred. He will spend more than two years in prison for posting
his noxious opinions on his blog.

Let's face it, even if he does post racist opinions on his internet sites, which I don't know that he does, he does not deserve to go to prison. If he explicitly threatens public officials, then he would deserve to go to prison. However, I have never seen any indication that he does that either.

In fact, in attempting to dig up news on why he is being imprisoned, I have not yet come across a single blog which has presented anything worse than the two pictures which accompany this post.

Here is some info on Seppo Lehto from a blog called Road Sassy (some of which is a quote from "European News"):

Seppo Lehto, seen in the first video here, has been described as a
“notorious hatemonger”, racist and other epithets. I do not really care. Maybe
he is, maybe he isn’t. In a saner time, those who made themselves unappealing to
society at large were shunned, perhaps mocked, and finally, ignored. They
certainly were not jailed for holding those views and expressing them. As long
as no physical or financial harm came to anyone, the freedom to express hatred,
or scorn, or mockery has always been protected.

The whole issue of what offends and what does not, should be dismissed
out of hand, with anti-religious and anti-free speech laws being stricken from
the books. The realm of where things should be decided is in the public sector,
with racist idiots like Seppo Lehto being confined to the ash heap in peoples
minds, not being incarcerated in a cell for two years.

Most of what can be said of Seppo Lehto’s numerous websites, is that
they are for the most part,..parodies, nothing that anyone could be close to
believing that they were true. lehto’s actions have been widely known for few
years, and posed no danger to society, due to his being written off as a crank.
In other words, not to be taken seriously.

And then along comes allah and his possess of caterwauling muslims and
the world is turned upside down.See, Lehto is going to go to jail for expressing
his views and he is one of a growing number world wide who are loosing their
freedoms because muslims are offended, and, I might add, because
PC-multiculturalism has castrated the West.

Unfortunately, one can’t choose only the most noble and upstanding
people as defendants in civil liberties cases. When it comes to the suppression
of free speech, authorities are more likely to pick off the stragglers — the
unpopular, unpleasant, and unattractive media personalities who inhabit the
fringes of public discourse.

Seppo Lehto is one such character, and now he has just been convicted
and sentenced for inciting ethnic hatred. He will spend more than two years in
prison for posting his noxious opinions on his blog. In many ways, Finland is
leading the way in the repression of free speech. Britain generates more cases,
but the Finns have been prosecuting theirs more effectively and imposing harsher
punishments.” (Source)

I pose the simple question, what has Seppo Lehto done which deserves imprisonment?

By the way, the Seppo Lehto I have known would only pose in a Nazi salute as an ironic statement. That may not be your favorite form of humor, but he ought not go to prison for such a thing, whether it was an ironic statement, or a personal statement.