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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   42353 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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Is there a norm of it not being a fireable offence to openly celebrate murder?

Yes, there is. In most of Europe firing someone for anything outside work is explicitly illegal.

In most of Europe, celebrating terrorism is also explicitly illegal.

Citation needed.

There is certainly no such clause in Finnish law. Even supporting (ie. material / financial / other direct aid) terrorism is illegal only if the support is for an actual terrorism act or a designated terrorist group.

Don’t assume UK and Germany == most of Europe.

The criminal code chapter 34a paragraph 5e criminalizes encouraging or enticing to join a terrorist organization or to commit a terrorist crime, if it is done in a manner that is likely to cause someone to do so. The law does not explicitly mention celebrating, but I suspect that for example celebrating a terrorist act on television could be interpreted to be enticing, although I don't know if any judgement based on this law has ever been decided in a court of law.

  • The UK (Terrorism Act 2006, Section 1 - "Encouragement of terrorism")
  • Germany(Section 130 StGB (Criminal Code) - "Incitement to hatred" (Volksverhetzung))
  • France (Article 421-2-5 of the Criminal Code)
  • Spain (Article 578 of the Spanish Criminal Code)
  • Italy (Articles 270 quater and 270 quinquies of the Criminal Code)
  • Poland (Article 255a of the Polish Criminal Code)
  • Austria (Section 282a of the Austrian Criminal Code)
  • Belgium (Article 140bis of the Criminal Code)
  • Cyprus (Article 12 of the 2010 law on combating terrorism)
  • Bulgaria (Article 320(1) and 320(2) of the Bulgarian Criminal Code)
  • Lithuania (Article 250(1) of the Lithuanian Criminal Code)
  • Luxembourg (Article 135(11) of the Luxembourg Criminal Code)
  • Romania (Act 187/2012, amending Law 535/2004 on preventing and combating terrorism)
  • Slovenia (Article 110(1)(1) and 110(1)(2) of the Criminal Code)

Most major European nations have laws on the books for this, and there are two EU directives and frameworks expressly referencing "glorification" in a "public provocation to commit a terrorist offense" that may be banned within that framework.

It's a norm that has a long past in Europe (since you know, we've not exactly been a peaceful continent), and though there are exceptions and enforcement varies, free speech that includes support for terrorism has essentially never been the norm in Europe.

It doesn't mean the police can't arrest you for activities outside of work. It means corporations can't terminate you from your job for your out-of-work activities.

Yes they can. There are just valid and non valid causes for firing. Going to jail for glorifying terrorism is one such valid reason.

If that were the case I know more than a couple of people who should’ve been imprisoned a long time ago.

Plenty people are and its trivially easy find information about this online.

For instance, in 2016 there were 306 persons in France alone that were convicted of apologia for terrorism and 232 of those were sentenced to jail.

I legitimately don't know how european employment law works- the closest analogue in the US that I can think of is union contracts which generally are not going to be used to defend celebrating terrorism even if they might slow down the termination process- does it require a hate speech conviction to fire an employee who says these kinds of things?

It's all complicated and specific to whatever country but in most cases you can fire someone for criminal behavior insofar as you can legitimately argue that it is either related to the business or tarnished the reputation of the business.

In this case, advocacy of terrorism is a very easy crime to argue tarnishes reputation.

So in practice you'll likely be fired soon after being arrested unless your employer is sympathetic.

In theory you are innocent until proven guilty so that should only happen after conviction, but in practice mere criminal proceedings are enough to argue reputational damage. And at best you're signing up to more lawsuits. As I said, details vary a lot.

Yeah, you wouldn't get fired. You'd get arrested.

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