According to Zeman, the police officer apparently defamed the followers of Islam as a religion recognized in the Czech Republic as well. He wrote generalizing and vulgar posts on a public Facebook profile. He likened Islam to cancer, writing about Muslim migrants as an unadaptable parasitic entity, as a creature.
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“These are clearly statements that are very disgraceful, insulting and hateful, while their content is directed towards a certain group of people precisely because of its Muslim religion,” he says in the appeal. It also mentions the frequency of contributions, “excessive vulgarity” and “completely irreconcilable lump sums in relation to the challenged group”.
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According to Zeman, “better than general legal awareness” can be expected from a writer as a police officer. With regard to the profession, he should also have an overview of the fact that thousands of people of the Muslim faith live in the Czech Republic without committing religious crimes.
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“It is clear that more than a billion people in the world profess the Islamic faith, with religious radicals who misinterpret Islam being only a fraction of that number,” the plaintiffs wrote in the appeal.
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In general, according to the Attorney General, the considerations of the regional court in the sense that Islam is a controversial religion in some aspects or specific manifestations can be accepted. However, this does not mean that it would be possible to downplay the inadmissible defamation of his followers, including generalizations and vulgarities. This is not the case even in a liberal society, in which a plurality of opinions must be respected, Zeman emphasized.
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