EU lawmakers, in unusual move, pull the plug on "racist" talk
EU lawmakers, in unusual move, pull the plug on racist
talk
By LORNE COOK Feb. 26, 2017 3:04 AM EST
BRUSSELS (AP) — With the specter of populism looming over
a critical election year in Europe, the European Parliament has taken an
unusual step to crack down on racism and hate speech in its own house.
In an unprecedented move, lawmakers have granted special
powers to the president to pull the plug on live broadcasts of parliamentary
debate in cases of racist speech or acts and the ability to purge any offending
video or audio material from the system.
Trouble is, the rules on what is considered offensive are
none too clear. Some are concerned about manipulation. Others are crying
censorship.
"This undermines the reliability of the Parliament's
archives at a moment where the suspicion of 'fake news' and manipulation
threatens the credibility of the media and the politicians," said Tom
Weingaertner, president of the Brussels-based International Press Association.
After Britain's decision to leave the European Union, the
rising popularity of anti-immigrant candidates like Geert Wilders in the
Netherlands or far-right Marine Le Pen in France is worrying Europe's political
mainstream. Le Pen, who is running for the French presidency this spring, has
promised to follow Britain's lead.
At the European Parliament, where elections are due in
2019, many say the need for action against hate speech, and strong sanctions
for offenders, is long overdue.
The assembly— with its two seats; one in the Belgian
capital of Brussels, and the other in Strasbourg in northeast France — is often
the stage for political and sometimes nationalist theater. Beyond routine
shouting matches, members occasionally wear T-shirts splashed with slogans or
unfurl banners. Flags adorn some lawmakers' desks.
Yet more and more in recent years, lawmakers have gone
too far.
"There have been a growing number of cases of
politicians saying things that are beyond the pale of normal parliamentary
discussion and debate," said British EU parliamentarian Richard Corbett,
who chaperoned the new rule through the assembly.
"What if this became not isolated incidents, but
specific, where people could say: 'Hey, this is a fantastic platform. It's
broad, it's live-streamed. It can be recorded and repeated. Let's use it for
something more vociferous, more spectacular,'" he told The Associated
Press.
In a nutshell, rule 165 of the parliament's rules of
procedure allows the chair of debates to halt the live broadcast "in the
case of defamatory, racist or xenophobic language or behavior by a
member." The maximum fine for offenders would be around 9,000 euros
($9,500).
Under the rule, not made public by the assembly but first
reported by Spain's La Vanguardia newspaper, offending material could be
"deleted from the audiovisual record of proceedings," meaning
citizens would never know it happened unless reporters were in the room.
Weingaertner said the IPA was never consulted on that.
A technical note seen by the AP outlines a procedure for
manually cutting off the video feed, stopping transmission on in-house TV
monitors and breaking the satellite link to halt broadcast to the outside
world. A videotape in four languages would be kept running to serve as a legal
record during the blackout. A more effective and permanent system was being
sought.
It is also technically possible to introduce a safe-guard
time delay so broadcasts appear a few seconds later. This means they could be
interrupted before offending material is aired.
But the system is unwieldy. Lawmakers have the right to
speak in any of the European Union's 24 official languages. An offending act
could well be over before the assembly's President Antonio Tajani even has a
chance to hit the kill switch. Misunderstandings and even abuses could crop up.
During a debate in December, Gerolf Annemans, from
Belgium's Flemish independence party Vlaams Belang, expressed concern that the
rule "can be abused by those who have hysterical reactions to things that
they qualify as racist, xenophobic, when people are just expressing politically
incorrect views."
Even those involved in the move acknowledge that it's a
sensitive issue.
Helmut Scholz, from Germany's left-wing Die Linke party,
said EU lawmakers are elected — indeed the EU parliament is the bloc's only
popularly elected institution — and must be able to express their views about
how Europe should work.
"You can't limit or deny this right," he said.
He worries about fake news too, but of the kind made from
selective extracts of debates.
"If you are following the whole debate that is one
thing, but if you have certain media who are taking out individual sentences
you could falsify the whole issue," he said.
Still, Nazi rallying cries and racist obscenities are
relatively rare but not unheard of.
"We need an instrument against that, to take it out
of the record, to stop distribution of such slogans, such ideas," Scholz
said.
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