Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff’s Speech in Paris

Below is the speech given today by Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff at “Assises contre l’islamisation de l’Europe” (“Rally Against the Islamization of Europe”) in Paris.

Update: The beginning of the text has been slightly revised, to reflect the speech as actually delivered:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am delighted to be here in Paris, the birthplace of modern European secular governance. And I am especially delighted to have been invited here by Gandalf, who founded the Alliance to Stop Sharia. Gandalf has been instrumental in shifting the focus of the European Counterjihad from Islam as a religion to the evils of sharia law.

Have you been accused of being an Islamophobe? A nazi? A xenophobe? A bigot? A misunderstander of Islam (copyright R. Spencer)? Have you been verbally attacked by well-meaning friends who belong either to the Leftist/Liberal spectrum and believe in the Religion of Respect and Anything Goes, or who in principle agree with you, but are sooo very afraid for you and suggest that you stop what you’re doing to stay alive. (What does that tell us about the Religion of Peace?)

I think I can safely assume that most of you, if not all, have at one point or another been subjected to some or all of the aforementioned accusations. I can certainly testify to that. But I can also tell you that I have been hauled into court to face trial for saying what I believe is the truth; a truth that many, especially those of the ruling elite, do not like to hear. Sadly, it seems that in a discussion, when one side has no real argument, he or she resorts to personal attacks. “This woman [as if I didn’t have a name!], she is a hate preacher. She can’t say that! She may be right, but she can’t say that!” Can’t say what? That sharia law is contrary to any of our secular laws? That its legal provisions include gender apartheid as well as killing of those who leave Islam or exercise the right to free speech. That sharia prescribes amputation of limbs and crucifixion even though Article 5 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights postulates that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Well, guess what? That is precisely what was eventually found in the charges!

In fall 2009, I was asked by the largest Austrian opposition party to hold a three-part seminar on the topic of Islam and the Islamization of Europe. I did this by quoting from the Quran, the hadith, the sunna. I also quoted well-known Muslim politicians like Erdogan, Ghadafi, Arafat, or the former Algerian prime minister. Little did I or the attendants know at the time that a young journalist had infiltrated and recorded the first two seminars without my knowledge. The left-wing magazine then decided to report me to the authorities, who in turn charged me with incitement to hatred. Let me quote the relevant paragraph:

By virtue of § 283 of the StGB, a person is deemed culpable of incitement:

(1) who incites or instigates in a manner liable to jeopardise public order an inimical act against a church or religious community established in the country or against a group determined by their affiliation to such a church or religious community, or to a race, people, tribe or state, or

(2) who agitates against or insults in a manner defamatory to human dignity or endeavours to condemn one of the groups defined in para. (1).

The crime is liable to a term of imprisonment of up to two years.

The outcry among the ruling elite in Austria was ear-splitting. High-ranked politicians, bishops, rabbis, and imams were asked to comment about the contents of a seminar they had never attended. A well-known Muslim university professor, asked by the magazine to analyze some of my controversial statements, even came to the conclusion that I am just like Osama Bin Laden!

In a matter of hours, my personal life was turned upside down. Some of my friends distanced themselves from by asking me to stay away from gatherings where Muslims may have shown up. The media completely ignored me and found the story of a Kosovar family blackmailing the government into granting them humanitarian asylum, after the umpteenth denial of the same, more interesting and captivating. “We do not see the need to report the idiocies of this woman [again, no name],” one liberal left-wing newspaper answered a curious enquirer. What does it matter that the Kosovar family broke the law and that I merely quoted the Quran? You can’t say that!

Interestingly enough, instead of silencing me, the magazine’s questionable actions have made me popular. All of a sudden, many people were outraged by what had happened to me and wanted to hear my side of the story. However, no one in Austria wanted to hear me; it was the Americans who were shocked, which was not surprising given the provisions of the 1st amendment of the US Constitution guaranteeing absolute freedom of speech, something we Europeans are in sore need of. I was invited to speak at the launch of the Freedom Defense Initiative, at the National Conference of ACT! for America, both in Washington DC. I spoke in Berlin at a rally for the Citizens’ Movement Pax Europa, as well as at the European Freedom Initiative rally in Amsterdam. The Danish Free Press Society in Copenhagen wanted to hear my take on freedom of speech. Just two weeks ago, I conveyed to my Israeli hosts the importance of Israel in the fight against Islamization. And today I am here in Paris to tell you about my trial. I was not silenced, nor will they ever succeed in silencing me!

By November 28, 2010, the member states of the European Union were required to implement an innocuous-sounding legal provision known as the “Framework decision on combating racism and xenophobia”, or, more fully, the “Council Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA of 28 November 2008 on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.” According to the final article of the Framework Decision, “Member States shall take the necessary measures to comply with the provisions of this Framework Decision by 28 November 2010.”

Why does this matter to the cause of free speech in Europe?

If you read the full text of the Framework Decision (which may be found in the legislative section of the EU’s website), you will learn that “Each Member State shall take the measures necessary… to ensure that the following intentional conduct is punishable”. Such “intentional conduct” includes “conduct which is a pretext for directing acts against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.”

Based on what has recently happened to Geert Wilders and me — and earlier to Gregorius Nekschot, Jussi Halla-aho, and numerous others — we can all guess who will be punished under this provision of the Framework Decision: those who criticize Islam.

It was not until October that a court date was set for my case. I had to discover this fact in the press — in NEWS, the same left-wing magazine that brought the original complaint against me. I was not officially notified of my hearing date until several days later.

The evidence used against me at my trial several weeks ago was a transcript of a tape of my lecture, provided to the court by the same socialist magazine. It included words that were not spoken by me, and words that were not spoken in public, which therefore were not a violation of the law.

But my case is not really about the law. It is a political trial, and like the trials of Geert Wilders and Jussi Halla-aho, it is intended to silence someone who speaks out against the barbaric nature of sharia law.

Above all else, it is intended to discourage anyone who might consider following in my footsteps. The oligarchs who rule Europe are determined to prevent any frank discussion among their citizens of Islam and its legal doctrines.

These are the methods of a totalitarian state.

They are more successful than those of the Nazis and the Fascists and the Communists because they are accomplished quietly and peacefully, with no need for concentration camps or gulags or mass graves or the shot in the back of the neck in the middle of the night.

They are surgical strikes executed via our legal systems, and they are quite effective. Between the summary punishment carried out against Theo Van Gogh and the EU Framework Decision applied though our courts, there is no room left for us to maneuver.

We are systematically being silenced.

I am not a victim. I intend to stand up for what is right. I will defend what needs to be defended. Above everything else, I will exercise my God-given right to speak freely about what is happening. Freedom of speech is the single most important freedom we possess.

I am doing this for my daughter, and for her children, for those who will have to live in the world we are now preparing for them. I am doing what our grandparents should perhaps have done during the 1930s, when their own freedoms were under threat.

This is our time. This cup will not pass from us.

I am reminded of a passage in J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous trilogy, The Lord of the Rings.

It is an exchange between Frodo the hobbit and Gandalf the wizard, and it concerns the perilous quest on which Frodo and his friends have been sent.

Frodo says: “I wish it need not have happened in my time.”

Gandalf responds: “So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

It is time for us to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

In speaking these words, I might be subject to arrest. I could be charged under the provisions of the Framework Decision, and extradited to the country that charged me using a European Arrest Warrant, escorted by the European Gendarmerie.

This is not an imaginary scenario; it is a very real possibility.

It is true that only a few people are likely to undergo such an ordeal. But it only takes a few people.

How many people have to endure what Mr. Wilders and I are enduring before everyone else gets the message?

How many examples have to be set before the rest of the European population understands the new rules, and is cowed into submission?

And we must remember to whom they will be submitting in the end. They will be submitting to our successors in Europe. They will be submitting to our replacements.

We must remember that the word for submission in Arabic is Islam.

When there are enough Muslims living in Europe — and it doesn’t have to be a majority of the population, just somewhere around fifteen or twenty percent — we will be living under Islamic law, and not the laws that presently govern us.

We will no longer enjoy what constitutional rights remain to us now. Our rights will be completely prescribed and delimited by sharia. Women will become the virtual chattel of men. Christians and Jews will be driven out or forced to convert to Islam. Atheists and homosexuals will be killed.

The European Union would consider these words to be “hate speech”. Under the Framework Decision, they would be classified as “racism and xenophobia”, and I could be prosecuted for saying them.

But they are in fact the simple truth.

Anyone can verify them by studying history. Anyone who chooses can read the Koran and the hadith and the Sunna of the Prophet.

Widely available official treatises on Islamic law confirm that my description is not “hate speech”, but a plain and accurate reading of the tenets of Islamic law.

It has become obvious that to tell the truth about Islam is now considered “incitement to religious hatred”.

It is now clear that non-Muslims who reveal the tenets of sharia law to the public are “denigrating religious teachings”.

If we meekly accept these rules, then we are acquiescing in the imposition of sharia law in our own nations. And I, for one, will not sit silently while this happens.

I don’t want my daughter to live under sharia.

Our time is short. If you and I do not envision an Islamic future for ourselves, then we must speak out now.

If we wish to preserve the right to speak and publish freely, then we must exercise it now.

I wish this need not have happened in my time. But it has.

We must make full use of the time that remains to us.

Thank you.