Criticism vs. Incitement/Hate Speech (in Europe)

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In most European countries, there are laws that criminalize incitement or hate speech.

I am curious as to how those countries differentiate between criticism of a certain group or belief system, and incitement.

If anyone knows what the line is, that would be great.

In the UK, it is an offence to incite racial or religious hatred or hatred based upon sexual orientation. You can be offensive, annoying, or rude, without committing an offence. To incite racial hatred or hatred based upon sexual orientation, you have to be insulting, threatening, or abusive. For religions, the standard is even higher: you have to be actively threatening a religious group.

I doubt I can give a better summary of what this means in practice than the one here

In practice, people in the UK are free to incite violence against atheists, gays, pagans, etc. with little or no consequence if they do it from the cover of a religious position.

A character like Anjem Choudary, for example, can promote the murder of homosexuals and never receive any punishment because he claims to speak for Islam. He may be a sort of buffoonish poster boy for how the UK Has given a pass to Muslim hatemongers, but there are so many more like him, and they are dangerous.

The UK needs to come to a social consensus that it has a culture and values worth defending and then do that in a manner in keeping with those values. Offenders should be mocked and the unrepentant imprisoned, but in the nicest way possible. If they can't play nicely, then they can't play at all.
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In the U.S. the criterion is clear.

Speech to suborn a felony, conspiring to commit a felony, speech to start a riot, speech to incite a lynch mob, speech to incite sedition and speech uttering clear and credible threats of harm are NOT protected under the First Amendment. Just about everything else is not subject to prior legal constraint. However libel and slander may be actionable.

This is true, but it would seem many people think free speech in this country means you can literally say anything you want regardless of what it incites or if it's verbal abuse with no consequences ever or else their freedom of speech is being violated.

I think it is reasonable there are limits to free speech, since freedom of anything is no good if it's being used to diminish or violate other peoples rights.

In Holland we have had a trial against right wing politician Geert Wilders

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Geert_Wilders
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Wilders

There was a trial in 2010 or 2011. And again this year. From wikipedia:
"On 18 March 2016, a second trial against Wilders began, this time on the accusation of inciting "discrimination and hatred" against Moroccans living in the Netherlands.[220] On 17 November 2016, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service demanded a fine against him of €5,000 (£4,300).[221] On 9 December 2016, he was convicted in a hate speech trial but no penalty was imposed."
The trouble is that Moroccans are high in the numbers of criminals in the Netherlands (about 1/3 of Moroccans in the Netherlands have had some problem with police).
But Wilders made a speech last year, in which he asked the crowd "Do you want less Moroccans?" and the crowd said "yes, yes, yes"
And this was, according to the court, not allowed, not in this form

I do not believe that free speech should be criminalised unless it is offensive to the majority of people (ie. promoting genocide or using racial slurs), inciting violence, or intimidating. Of course, what's offensive to the majority in the UK isn't the same as what's considered offensive in Japan or in Pakistan. Furthermore, this is not a static variable- 50 years ago it was acceptable to refer to nonwhite people as "coloured", now it's not. So the logistics are quite murky.

Its a very tricky subject and its a hard one to address especially in the entertainment industry.
Films, music, adverts and even comedy can be propaganda.

While, to some extent you want to give people freedom when it comes to sense of humor, even if some may view some types of humor as bad taste. I find it hard to work out what is humor and what is just a sadistic hate campaign.

Over the years i have had a few run ins with neo-nazi types. In work and sport etc, if you pull them up on their bigotry, they will straight away claim that you are a bigot as all they are doing is exercising their freedom of speech.
However, in the past there weren't really any laws to forbid them from expressing such hateful opinions.

During those time i would be more likely to be prosecuted for telling a joke (which was blatantly a joke) than the neo-nazis were of inciting hate. Problem with the neo's, is that they are often expert liars and manipulators.
Where as good decent people are generally honest and straight forward and who have no intention of inciting hate.
But thats life i guess.

Anjem Choudary is serving years in prison for encouraging Muslims to support Islamic State.

The line is a bit blurry at times, but typically, it becomes illegal if the group of people is mentioned first (like, "a black criminal" instead of "a criminal that happens to be black").

You are free to criticize anyone and anything, regardless of group identity, ethnicity, religion or gender, but not on the topic of the preceding.
In the same way, i am free to state that islam is a religion that preaches hate, but i am not allowed to state that all muslims are criminals that should be deported.

In Germany "incitement of the people" (Volksverhetzung) is in practice mostly used with (neo)fascist statements. On this ground, there is a law that prohibits the use of nazi symbols, so people get fined for using the swastica even in anti-fascist imagery (one German politician called this judgement "autistic" btw). Some German judges though are rather reluctant to apply the "incitement of the people" on fascist people. Part of the reason is that the judicial systems are and have always been rather on the right, and count much more extreme right people in their ranks than the average population does.

Then there is an utterly stupid press codex which has come under criticism even before the refugee flood last year which bears some connection to the same idea. The codex wants that the media should not mention the migration background of criminals (unless highly relevant). "Lies press"(Lügenpresse) has become a buzzword in a bigger part the social media, the right to far right Pegida movement and the AfD party. Criminal statistics are also not as precise about the migrational background than many people (including me) think they should be.

My view is that any credible call to violence against specific groups because of their ethnicity, religion, etc. should definitely be a criminal offense.

I don't think that a merely offensive view, such as a pastor saying that homosexuality is a sin, or saying that Islam promotes violence in its most radical forms, should be criminalized. However, with more egregious views, such as Holocaust denial, I would not necessarily be opposed to those things being punished with a fine.

Virtually ever major advance the human race has made was offensive to the majority of people then alive.

Holocaust denial is stupid. However, it is also stupid to lock up ignorant people simply for denying that it happened.

I do agree that people have a right to voice any view, evendors stating that "homosexuality or abortion is a sin". It is not inciting violence or hatred. We have to learn to deal with each situation as it comes and punish people ONLY for actual physical hands on crimes to the fullest extent. And death threats are bad too.