Last November I reported on the case of Susanne Winter, an Austrian politician and member of Parliament for the FPÖ, who was charged with incitement for public statements she made about Islam.
As a reminder, here’s the description of her “crimes”:
“In today’s system” the Prophet Muhammad would be considered a “child molester,” apparently referring to his marriage to a six-year-old child. She also said that it is time for Islam to be “thrown back where it came from, behind the Mediterranean.”
Yesterday Susanne Winter was convicted of the charges against her and given a three-month suspended sentence plus a substantial fine. The news in German may be found here, and a brief report in English is available at Earth Times:
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Vienna — Austrian far-right parliamentarian Susanne Winter was convicted Thursday of incitement because of her anti-Muslim statements, including the claim that Islam’s prophet Mohammed was a paedophile. A court in Winter’s home town of Graz also found the 51-year-old politician guilty of humiliating a religion. She was sentenced to a fine of 24,000 euros (31,000 dollars) euros and a suspended prison term of three months, Austrian news agency APA reported.
The politician, who took a seat in parliament last fall for the Freedom Party (FPOe), made the anti-Islamic remarks in January 2008.
She also proposed in a discussion with students that Muslim men should commit bestiality rather than making “indecent advances” on girls.
The politician had pleaded innocent Thursday, claiming that she “did not want to insult anyone, but only to point out problems.”
The verdict is not yet legally binding.
Winter’s son Michael, a former youth leader in the Freedom Party, was convicted of the same crime last October. He had suggested in a newsletter that Turkish Muslims were in the habit of committing bestiality.
As Robert Spencer says, “Is truth no defense?”
Hat tip: Diana West.
10 comments:
Translation of the linked German article ....
She arrived under police protection, saying "I am hoping for justice", carrying a white lilly, the flower of innocence. It didn't help. FPÖ-politician Susanne Winter was yesterday given a 3 months suspended sentence and 24000 euros fine. The trial proceeded without any problems, with plenty of media interest : even press-teams form Syria and Czech republic were there.
"I don't consider myself guilty " said Winter, not guilty of attacking the Muslim community, not guilty of demeaning religious teaching at various FPO events.
"I was astonished at the reaction" she said on Thursday. Astonished at the reaction to her use of the term "the immigration-tsunami". At the reaction to her call to "throw Islam back to where it came from, namely the other side of the Mediterranean" and at her comparison "the Prophet Mo would be considered a child abuser in todays system" and that he "wrote the Koran whilst suffering from epileptic fits"
Winter was found not guilty on lack of evidence of having recommended that "animal-brothels be set up in the city park so that Muslim men can go there instead of attacking girls"
State prosecutor Wolfgang Redtenbacher called on the court's responsibilty " ...to set limits, the background to this case extends far beyond this town. Think of the next elections, think of Vienna"
Defending, Bernhard Lehofer cited freedom of speech "She had no intention of preaching hatred" which was countered by the prosecutor stating "that right is limited by other rights" The defense claimed that statements had been taken out of context, Prosecutor: "They had only one aim: to get votes, a quite low and nasty method used by Winter and her party to appeal to xenophobic sentiments"
Winter defended herself with "the simplification of the political message is just good advertising sense". The FPO had used banners which read " Heer Cooms radical Islam - poor German, but thats just the way it is"
The judge became uncomfortable " What has radical Islam got to do with Mohammed and epilepsy?" Winter spoke further about the building of mosques: Austria is famous for its churches, lakes, beautiful mountain scenery, you will hardly see any mosques, just the way tourists imagine it to be, Islam in small doses would be good for Austria, but the size, the excess, that's what she meant by tsunami. Same goes for the russina tourist in the Tyrol.
" Were you not worried that your statements would be misunderstood?" asked the judge, referring to the party's "foreigners-out" rhetoric. No, she had not. "You can't write during and epileptic fit" accused the judge. Winter :"There are famous Austrian artists who have produced their best work whilst in a manic-depressive state"
The judge " What would hold you back from using similar messages at the next election campaign? Nothing, if you think that there is no problem"
She will not lose her National Council position because of the sentence, always the case with suspended sentences. Numerous other politicains have called for her resignation.
Susanne Winter is an adorable person, for such as she, all things are permitted!
This is Evil!
The fact that FPÖ didn't mount a solid defense also shows that they don't quite comprehend the trouble we're facing.
The FPO had used banners which read " Heer Cooms radical Islam - poor German, but thats just the way it is"
Chechmade and Zenster should inform FPÖ that Austrians are not Germans (and not even close!). A matter that Czechmade and Zenster are in a better position to know about than FPÖ. It would be highly unfortunate if FPÖ would continue spreading this misunderstanding when there are people who know this so much better than them and could set them straight. Frankly it is highly embarrassing how FPÖ is unaware of the true Austrian identity, when this is such a well known fact in places such as America and Czech Republic. Set them right with your superior knowledge!
It's debatable how 'German' Austrians are. I read somewhere that after the fall of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, there was a strong public movement supporting the idea that Austria should become one of the German 'Länder' (Germany is a union somewhat like USA) rather than a small, independent nation.
That Hitler exploited this sentiment for his purposes is a cruel irony of history. After that, the Austrians I know are adamant that they are *not* Germans :)
Word is that Bavaria has a movement to seperate it from the German Union :)
Henrik,
I'm trying to make sense of what you say. And since you have already brought up Mr. H, I think it would be clarifying to see how you deal with the following question:
Was Hitler a German?
Well then no volunteers, so I will answer the question myself.
Up until the second world war there was no doubt that Austrians were considered German, so that applies to Hitler too of course. Something happened about that after WWII, and for long a majority of Austrians preferred considering themselves as not being Germans. But this is merely a temporal politicized identity and has nothing to do with a disinterested historical perspective and the essence of things. Austrians are of German ethnicity. Any student of anthropological history that denies that is not interested in facts and essence but stuck in temporal myths and delusions.
FPÖ, as the breath of fresh air they truly are -- judging from their fabulous banner -- have embraced this simple and essential fact. Austrians being Germans is not some ploy by Hitler, as some people want to suggest. Such a suggestion is utterly history-less, and I think it is a disgrace how everything about the Germans still tends to get filtered through the prism of Hitler.
To illustrate the whole thing, let me take the example of the Italian minority in Switzerland. Are they Italian? We refer to them as Swiss Italians. Do the Austrians-are-not-Germans crowd want to claim that "Italians" in the expression Swiss Italians does not refer to ethnicity? Are "Italian" deprived of any ethnic meaning in this expression and all what they have are their Swiss passports? This way of reasoning truly reminds me of the hardcore PC totalitarianism that we have here in Sweden, where the Swedish ethnicity has been abolished by the state, while people like me are referred to as "people of Swedish background". This is the sort of circular and empty newspeak one ends up in when denying the essence of things.
I hear more and more about Austrians referring to themselves as Germans. This is a brave and honourable restoration of essential truth, in reaction to the many years of denial behind a politicized identity. Only brave people speak the truth in times like the ones we live in, and I applaud FPÖ for doing so. I also applaud Fjordman for his recent comments hoping for the people of Germany to bravely rise from this sort of bullying too. Germany truly belongs in our family. And none of us will get anywhere without self-confidence about our nationality and the morality of taking care of our own -- "own people first" as Dewinter says. This bullying has to stop. Unfortunately it is carried by many commenters at this site as well as in the anti-jihad movement in general (as well as belligerent hostility towards other ethnicities too, that are our natural allies).
Finally I'm trying to figure out how Czechmade would have answered my question about Hitler above. I think he would have said that Hitler was a "ConSwede German" (referring to a previous discussion). Which would mean that Hitler decided that he was a German only after reading my comments here at Gates of Vienna. For Czechmade the age old concept of German ethnicity, which was considered self-evident up until WWII, apparently is so alien to him that he named it after me.
When we say "Germans" it can refer to on of two things: i) people with German passports, or ii) people of German ethnicity. This is hardly confusing because natural languages are full of these sorts of overlaps. But regarding the question of Germans there are many people who have an interest in confusing the issue (so thanks for the brave and sensible ones who speaks soberly about it such as FPÖ). It is possible the be Swiss and Italian at the same time, one for the passport and one for the ethnicity. It is possible to be Finnish and Swedish at the same time, one for the passport and one for the ethnicity. It is possible to be Austrian and German at the same time, one for the passport and one for the ethnicity. People who get confused by this act as if they were born yesterday. And many people, in discussion such as this, apparently confuse German with Prussian -- yet another politicized misconception.
Universalist liberals in the thrall of the UN etc. are of course extremely fond of every new whim of politicized definitions and newspeak. History never existed. Everything is in the now. Moldavians are something different and not at all related to Romanian ethnicity. Austrians are something distinct and not at all related to German ethnicity. And there is this new language called Bosniak, etc.
Serious students of anthropological history, however, know to look beyond such superficial political theater.
Con Swede, just to clarify, I translated the phrase in the FPO-banner "das ist kein schönes Deutsch" as "poor German" to mean "poor use of the German language" (referring to the first part of the banner which is deliberately misspelt by FPO to imply written-by-foreigner) - my fault if any misunderstanding was caused
Good to see you back at GoV - not that I read much of the stuff you write, it's usually much too long-winded for my taste - but I have always thought that after all the chit-chat and debating is done, then any real resistance to Euro-Islam will just be a matter of feet-on-the-ground, simple numbers, us versus them, I have one pair of feet, so do you, that's all which will matter.
Piggy Infidel,
Thank you for the clarification. And it doesn't matter really since it inspired me to write what I think is a valuable and penetrating comment that I posted just above. So it was all for the best.
Regarding pairs of feet, I wish I had had such an untroubled outlook as you have. But what I see is not pairs of feet joining together but an increase of mythology derived hostilities against all sorts of ethnic groups that should have been considered our allies. And it has become clear to me that these hostilities cannot be abridged. So our resistance is severely scattered, and we can reasonably only talk about isolated islands of resistance. People of European descent are still so much more fond of hating and fighting each other, then joining together in a struggle against Islam. I do see several cases of how increased worries about Islam and the world situation lead to revived nationalist feelings, which in turns often lead to increased belligerent hostility towards other groups of European ethnicity, according to mythological nationalist patterns.
Sad but true. We have ended up becoming the biggest losers in the history of mankind, and entirely by our own design. People of European descent seem to be doomed to fight each other forever, and constitutionally unable to properly focus on anything else.
We need nationalism of course. But intelligent nationalism looking to the future, and not primitive jingoism stuck in the past.
Islam is incompatible with Western culture, history, judicial system, and civilization. Remember, our judicial system based on Judea-Christian values. Islam objects these values and Koran calls for extermination of Christians and Jews. Muslims objective is creation of global Caliphate and establishing Shariah Law. All this eventually leads to civil war, unless we will take care and deport all muslims from US and Europe. Look what is going in Britain, France and other countries where muslims clear declared their primary objective to overcome current social systems and replace them with Sharia law. Read below confessions of leading muslims around the world.
Dr. Ja`far Sheikh Idris in article “Separation Of Church And State”
http://www.islaam.com/Article.aspx?id=559
said: “Secularism cannot be a solution for countries with a Muslim majority or even a sizeable minority, for it requires people to replace their God-given beliefs with an entirely different set of man-made beliefs. Separation of religion and state is not an option for Muslims because is requires us to abandon Allah's decree for that of a man.”
Omar Ahmad Co-founder of the Council of American-Islamic Relations: "Those who stay in America should be open to society without melting, keeping Mosques open so anyone can come and learn about Islam. If you choose to live here, you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam ... Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of
scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."
Fatah, a left-wing Canadian Muslim who wants Canada to ban the hijab and burka, writes about Tariq Ramadan as the new face of Islamists.
"Tariq Ramadan reflects the new sophisticated arm of the worldwide Islamist movement, which sees the West as the right place to wage a cultural and intellectual jihad. It preys on Muslim youth who are tired of the old guard; men in beards and long frocks, frothing as they denounce the evil West. The new technique is to undermine the West from within, like parasites and termites, with the host society never
knowing what hit it, until it is too late. UK is one example."
Algerian leader Houari Boumédienne said at the United Nations in 1974:
“One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory.”
Al-Jazeera’s Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradhawi, who is widely hailed as a moderate reformer in the West, said:
“Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor,” and “the conquest this time will not be by the sword but by preaching and ideology.”
A Saudi Sheikh, Muhammad bin Abd Al-Rahman Al-‘Arifi, imam of the mosque of King Fahd Defense Academy, said:
Muslims “will control the land of the Vatican; we will control Rome and introduce Islam in it”
Mark Bernadiner, PH.D.
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