Friday, February 18, 2011

Sentence First — Verdict Afterwards

The Red Queen and Alice

‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first - verdict afterwards.’

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of having the sentence first!’

‘Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.

‘I won’t!’ said Alice.

‘Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.

‘Who cares for you?’ said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face.

‘Wake up, Alice dear!’ said her sister; ‘Why, what a long sleep you’ve had!’


From Chapter 12 of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll

Unlike Alice, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff does not have the luxury of waking up from the surreal judicial drama into whose rabbit hole she so recently fell.

Like the Queen and the King of Wonderland, the prosecution and the judge in Elisabeth’s case apparently settled on the sentence long before considering a verdict. Elisabeth’s trial was as nonsensical as that of the Knave. Like Alice, hers was the only voice of sanity in a courtroom full of madmen.

But the rabbit hole goes even deeper than that. The judge in the case, Bettina Neubauer, convicted Elisabeth for saying that Mohammed was a pedophile. There’s only one problem: Elisabeth never said any such thing. As the transcript of her seminar demonstrates, Elisabeth in fact said that “Mohammed had a thing for little kids”, the plain facts of which even the judge was forced to accept.

ESW seminar transcript

In other words, the judge in Elisabeth’s trial, acting on her own initiative, put words into Elisabeth’s mouth and then convicted her for saying them.

If only The Hon. Neubauer were the Red Queen in a pack of cards!

If only we could all wake up from this feverish nightmare!

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

Elisabeth did, however, use the word “pedophilia” in her seminar, but only to describe what Susanne Winter had done to earn her own “hate speech” conviction. Elisabeth sent us a note this morning explaining all of this:

In my seminar I described a conversation with my sister.

It was January 2007, I think, and my sister called me about the scandal Susanne Winter had caused by saying what she said. I told her that it was public knowledge that Mohammed had married a six-year-old and consummated the marriage when she was nine. I then said that if this isn’t pedophilia, then what is?

She said, no, you can’t say it that way, you have to word it differently, more diplomatically.

I said, well tell me how. She was silent — she didn’t know.

What’s important here is that I was recounting a story that happened before Winter had been convicted, and it was the only time on record that I actually used the word.

In all other instances I circumvented the word by saying “Mohammed had a thing for little kids”, knowing that Winter had been convicted for saying what she said.

And still, judge Bettina Neubauer called me a “repeat offender” and fined me heavily.

Here are the exact words I was found guilty for [see also the German transcript above]:

7. One of the biggest problems we are facing today is that Mohammed is seen as the ideal man, the perfect human being, the perfect Muslim. It is imperative for a devout Muslim to copy Mohammed. This is not according to today’s standards or our way of life or laws. This is because he was a warlord, had had plenty of women, to put it this way, and he had a things for children. And according to our standards he was not a perfect human. As a result we are faced with huge problems, because Muslims are in conflict with democracy and our value system.

[… ] and when we speak about the Al-Bukhari collection of hadith you can be certain that this is recognized by all [Sunni] Muslims. And it is in Al-Bukhari where we can find the information about Aisha and sex with children.
 
8. I remember talking with my sister — and I have recounted this story a few times already — about Susanne Winter’s infamous talk. My sister called me on the phone, saying, “Oh my God, did you tell her that?” “No, it wasn’t me, but you can find it in the books, it’s not a secret.” She: “But you can’t say it that way.” Me: “A 56-year-old and a six-year-old? What do you call that? Give me an example. What do you call it if not pedophilia?” She: “Well, you have to use a circumlocution, be more diplomatic.” My sister is symptomatic. We have heard this so often: “Those were different times.” I say, No, [this behavior] wasn’t OK back then and it is not OK today. Period. And this (old men marrying young girls) is still happening today. This is never to be condoned.


Readers should not go by the fine of €480. What’s crucial here is the fact that I was fined 120 “day rates” of €4, because I am a housewife with no income. If I had income, the actual fine would have been much higher. It’s the “day rates” that make the fine a hefty one.

Susanne Winter was fined €24,000 euros, because she makes 10,000 euros a month.

The letter sent to Elisabeth by her lawyer is also apposite to this discussion. Many thanks to JLH for the translation:

Gheneff-Rami-Sommer
Attorneys at Law


To: Mrs. Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff

February 15, 2011

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff Trial
112 HV 144/10g, Regional Criminal Court Vienna

Dear Mrs. Sabaditsch-Wolff,

As you know, the main trial in the above-named case took place on February 15, 2011.

After your supplemental interrogation, the requests for evidential interrogation of witnesses Wafa Sultan, Hans Jansen and Robert Spencer — previously not dealt with by the court — were rejected, because the court of first instance perceived their statements to be valuations (“subjective assertions”), to the content of which the requested witnesses could contribute nothing. The request to question Ilse Albrecht was refused because she would only have been able to testify subjectively whether she was upset or angry at your comments on Mohammed.

In conclusion the welcome verdict was announced: You were exonerated of the charge of incitement according to § 283 StGB. The court found your statements on Islam permissible in the sense of Art 10 MRK, since according to this regulation criticism must be made in a provocative manner. Our arguments were agreed to in their entirety.

You were found, however, to have committed the offense of § 188 StGB (denigration of a religion) because of your statements in the seminars of October 15, 2009 and November 12, 2009 about Mohammed and his sexual intercourse with nine year-old Aisha. The judge’s basis for that focused on the circumstance that the offense of § 188 StGB is an abstract criminal threat, and therefore the mere aptness to cause offense was sufficient to qualify as the crime. What was incomprehensible was the judge’s conclusion that Mohammed’s sexual contact with nine-year-old Aisha was not pedophilia, because Mohammed continued his marriage to Aisha until his death.

Punishment was set at 120 per diem payments of €4, in total €480 or an alternative sentence of 60 days imprisonment.

Further, the costs of the trial must be paid.

The verdict does not have the force of law. since we as well as the prosecutor have announced the intention to appeal by reason of invalidity and because of the remarks about culpability and sentencing.

We have four weeks after receipt of the copy of the verdict to execute the appeal.

With warm greetings, I remain

Dr. Michael Rami

Take a deep breath, everyone, and think about the implications of the above material.

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was convicted for stating the plain facts: the prophet Mohammed had sex with a nine-year-old-girl. She never used the word pedophilia; she simply described in everyday language the prophet’s… ahem… tastes.

The statements she made are not considered false by observant Muslims. They are written down in Islamic scripture, and are considered correct and authoritative by virtually every Islamic scholar and theologian.

These scriptural passages are not considered offensive to Muslims when they are recited in a mosque or a madrassa. Mohammed was the perfect man, so by definition his actions cannot be offensive. They are in fact exemplary. That is why Muslim men continue to marry little girls to this day.

Elisabeth’s statements are offensive because they were made by a non-Muslim in public, and brought discredit upon Islam in the eyes of other non-believers.

This offense is referred to as “Islamic slander”, and is a grave violation of Islamic law. Under sharia, the penalty is death.

But it is only illegal under sharia.

Monday’s verdict had nothing to do with Austrian law, or European law. It was based solely on the unwritten laws of politically correct Multiculturalism, which absolutely forbids the offending of Muslims.

This entire judicial farce was necessary in order to establish a sharia-based precedent in Austria. Whether Bettina Neubauer realizes it or not, her role in the case was to enforce Islamic law in the country formerly known as Austria.

Welcome to the Caliphate.


Previous posts about the hate speech case against Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff:

2009 Dec 5 Fighting a Hate Speech Charge in Austria
    11 Heckling the Counterjihad
    14 Whose Law?
    17 Defaming the Muslims of Pinkafeld
2010 Mar 11 A Mother and an Activist
    20 An Austrian “Hate School”
    22 Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff at the Freedom Defense Initiative
    29 Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff and the Wiener Akademikerbund
  Sep 9 “Islam is a Political Ideology Disguised as a Religion”
    16 “Justice Must Not Be Made the Handmaiden of Sharia”
    17 The Truth Does Not Matter
  Oct 11 Interview With Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff
    16 Is the Truth Illegal in Austria?
    20 A Court Date for Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff
    21 BPE Press Release on Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff
    22 Elisabeth’s Voice: An Appeal
    23 Elisabeth’s Voice: A Follow-Up
    24 Raising Our Voices
    25 Elisabeth’s Voice is Growing
    27 Elisabeth’s Voice: More Information
    27 A Bit More Media Attention?
    28 We Are Elisabeth’s Voice
    30 Elisabeth’s Voice in Amsterdam
    31 Mark Steyn Joins Elisabeth’s Voice
  Nov 2 Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff: Target of Western Shariah
    6 Anatomy of a Discussion with a Leftist Journalist
    8 ESW in the WSJ
    10 “The Left is Very Much the New Far Right”
    11 Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff Versus the State of Denial
    17 Elisabeth’s Voice: An Update
    15 The New English Review Interviews Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff
    20 Live-Blogging the Trial of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff
    20 The ESW Defense File
    23 The Trial of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, Day 1
    27 The Time That is Given Us
    28 ESW at Trykkefrihedsselskabet
  Dec 5 An Oasis of Civilization in a Desert of Barbarism
    22 An Unusual Hobby
    23 In Demand Everywhere
2011 Jan 14 ESW: Thoughts Before a Trial
    14 Live-Blogging the Trial of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, Part Two
    16 ESW: A Submission to the Court in Vienna
    18 The Trial of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, Day 2
    21 Elisabeth’s Voice, Phase Two
    28 Geert Wilders Supports Elisabeth’s Voice
  Feb 5 Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff in Luton
    10 A Dangerous Mindset
    13 An Appeal to Rectify an Oversight
    14 ESW: Submission III to the Court in Vienna
    15 ESW: The RT Interview
    15 The Trial of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, Day 3
    16 Time to Say Thank You
    18 Convicted for Calling Muhammad a “Paedophile”

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Elisabeth: You are a hero. :)

I am somewhat concerned about the prospect of an appeal by either side in this case. In the USA, it is my understanding that, when a defendant appeals a verdict, the court totally sets aside the first verdict in favor of a new trial where the verdict may again be for or against the defendant and may be based on different factors than the first verdict. Thus, in the USA, a new trial for you could result in an even worse or more harsh outcome than the first trial. I believe that you may need to consult your legal team about the rules in Austria.

That said, you might want to contact Father Zakaria Botros to ask him to send your legal team a list of the “No less than 20 Islamic sources—such as the hadiths of Ahmad bin Hanbal—[that] relay that Muhammad used to suck on the tongues of boys and girls."

Although Mohammed MAY (or may not) have continued to have sexual relations with and/or stayed married to Aisha past her 18th birthday, did Mohammed marry and stay married to all of the various girl and boy children upon whose tongues he sucked? I think not.

Anonymous said...

More from a Jihad Watch commenter:

DenverRodeo | January 12, 2009 4:27 PM

Botros is quoted as saying:

"No less than 20 Islamic sources—such as the hadiths of Ahmad bin Hanbal—relay that Muhammad used to suck on the tongues of boys."

Actually, there is a hadith in Bukhari (the most authoritative of all hadiths in Islam) where Mohammed sticks his tongue in a little boy's mouth:

1183. It is related that Abu Hurayra said, "I never sae [sic] al-Hasan without my eyes overflowing with tears. That is because the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, went out one day and I found him in the mosque. He took my hand and I went along with him. He did not speak to me until we reached the market of Banu Qaynuqa'. He walked around it and looked. Then he left and I left with him until we reached the mosque. He sat down and wrapped himself in his garment. Then he [Mohammed] said, 'Where is the little one? Call the little one to me.' Hasan came running and jumped into his lap. Then he put his hand in his beard. Then the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, opened his mouth and put his tongue in his mouth. Then he said, O Allah, I love him, so love him and the one who loves him!'"

Here's the link (scroll down to #1183):

SunniPath

Come to think of it, the way the translation goes -- "opened his mouth and put his tongue in his mouth" -- maybe Botros's interpretation is the right one:

"[the Prophet] opened his mouth [the little boy's mouth, not his own] and put his tongue [the little boy's tongue, not his own] in his [his own, i.e., the Prophet's] mouth."

So Mohammed would actually be sucking on the tongue of little Hasan, like Botros worded it.

Anonymous said...

Egghead--I don't presume to know how the civilian system works (apart from quite differently from any English law system I've encountered), but when a case is sent for retrial it tends to be because there was something technically wrong with the first trial--the judge misdirected the jury, evidence was let in that should have been excluded, etc. Therefore, a new jury is required to hear only the admissible evidence and to get a correct direction from the judge at the end. Here, the judge is the jury, and I expect the appeal would be on the ground that the judge, in her capacity of tribunal of fact, came to a conclusion that the evidence just didn't support--or that no reasonable tribunal of fact would find on the evidence before the Court that the elements of the offence had been made out. Of course, that's putting an English law spin on it. In Austria, the judge is part of the investigatory arm of criminal enforcement, along with the prosecutor--look how she inserted a new, less serious, charge when she realised there just wasn't evidence to sustain the charge the prosecutor had run the case on.

goethechosemercy said...

Quote:
In other words, the judge in Elisabeth’s trial, acting on her own initiative, put words into Elisabeth’s mouth and then convicted her for saying them.
end quote.

ESW then, was convicted on the basis of the Judge's straw man.
Yes, this court and conviction are truly a house of cards!

Hesperado said...

Egghead, you must be reading my mind. I just spent an hour looking for that information about Mohammed sucking the tongue of a little boy. By the way -- I am "Denver Rodeo"! (One of my nicks I used in order to hide from Robert Spencer, who had banned me twice before from commenting on JW.)

That source, by the way, comes from Bukhari.

I think it's important to augment Mohammed's treatment of Aisha with at least one other case, because I think ESW's phrase "had a thing for children" is unfortunate if she is only using one child, Aisha, as her example.

P.S.: Here's another tidbit about Mohammed and Aisha from a hadith:

Abu Dawud : Book 13, Number 2380:

Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu'minin: "The Prophet (PBUH) used to kiss her and suck her tongue when he was fasting."

Immediately, however, we see a problem in the locution here: this is supposed to be a hadith of Aisha herself (as a dutiful Stockholm Syndrome fanatic, she had many sayings about Islam that were recorded and passed on), but would Aisha narrate something about herself in the 3rd person? One way to save the quote above is to add one word and do a little typographical massage, which may have been reflected in the original Arabic:

Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu'minin, [that] the Prophet (PBUH) used to kiss her and suck her tongue when he was fasting.

Hesperado said...

Also, another thing I noticed about the quote Egghead found. Notice the almost Satanic mirror-image reversal when the following comparison of verses is drawn.

First, the quote about Mohammed sucking the little boy's tongue. I will bold the passages that pertain to the comparison I am drawing:

1. the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, went out one day and I found him in the mosque. He took my hand and I went along with him. He did not speak to me until we reached the market of Banu Qaynuqa'. He walked around it and looked. Then he left and I left with him until we reached the mosque. He sat down and wrapped himself in his garment. Then he [Mohammed] said, 'Where is the little one? Call the little one to me.' Hasan came running and jumped into his lap. Then he put his hand in his beard. Then the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, opened his mouth and put his tongue in his mouth. Then he said, O Allah, I love him, so love him and the one who loves him!'"

Now I quote a couple of verses about Jesus from the Gospels:

2.

Then were there brought unto [Jesus] little ones, that he should put [his] hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them.

But Jesus said, Suffer the little ones, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

And he laid [his] hands on them, and departed thence. (Matthew 19:13-15)

And whosoever shall offend one of [these] little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. (Mark 9:42; cf. also Luke 17:2 and Matthew 18:7)

In that hadith about Mohammed, it's almost as though there is a willful (I would say Satanic) perversion of the Gospel in that one regard.

Always On Watch said...

I was extraordinarily busy yesterday (caregiving my husband) and just now learned of what happened at Elisabeth's trial.

I am stunned!

Sickened!

Without freedom to criticize any and every religion and ideology, the West is lost.

Truthiocity said...

We can intellectualise and find sources and such but it boils down to this:

Ms Wolff said you cannot call Muhammad a pepdohile. The judge used that statement to accuse Ms. Wolff of calling Muhammad a pedophile. Only after the lie did the Judge start splitting hairs over proper terminology.

It's like charging me with conspiracy to commit murder because I tell people over and over again that murder is against the law.

The judge committed slander. She knowingly lied. Then passed a judgement based on that lie.

Of course I don't know what the laws are in Austria but lying in court is against the law here in America (though I don't know about when judges do it). Perhaps that's the real reason the prosecution kept their mouths shut so much.

Those who actually respect the law in Austria should seek to have this judge removed from the bench, disbarred if appropriate and prosecuted for libel if Austrian law applies.

Anonymous said...

Hesperado: Thanks for the feedback. :) It took me a while on google to find the info, too. Even though I knew exactly what I wanted, it was very buried in google.

Hesperado said...

I notice Lawrence Auster has weighed in on this issue of the fitness of the epithet "pedophile" for Mohammed. While he takes the unremarkably rational (but, of course, in today's PC MC climate, uncommon) stand that the right to describe him with that epithet should be protected, he goes on to try to argue, clumsily, that the epithet itself is not fitting. I agree, but not for the garbled reason Auster presents:

"Personally, I think it’s silly to call Muhammad a pedophile. Aisha was his wife, and, according to the official Islamic biographies, his favorite wife, the one whose opinion he consulted most often. She was also the daughter of his closest friend and first Caliph, Abu Bekr, and a prominent and honored figure in the Islamic community."

Huh? So a 50-something old man taking a 6 year-old-girl away from her family (whether they willingly gave her away is hardly ethically relevant) and keeping her for sex (and the hadiths have quite a few sordid details of his uses of her, such as Aisha's recounting how she often had to clean the semen stains off his clothing, or how Mohammed would suck her tongue when he was religiously fasting) -- among other things (other things which are, again, ethically irrelevant and moreover are things about which we can only conjecture, such as "being in love" with her) -- and calling the whole thing "marriage" is to relieve it of the epithet pedophilia...? Auster is here close to reprising the tortured logic of the Austrian judge in this regard.

Auster goes on to say:

"Steyn’s comparison of Muhammad’s marriage with Aisha to modern cases of perverts abducting young girls and keeping them captive for years is quite stupid."

In fact, Mohammed did precisely that. As those of us who have become Islamoliterate know, "marriage" as fleshed out in the Koran and hadiths is little more than abduction of women and keeping them as sex slaves and baby factories to reproduce more warriors.

Furthermore, Auster demonstrates a significant slip in Islamoliteracy -- claiming in passing that Mohammed married Aisha when she was 9. You'd think someone like Auster, who has been analyzing and observing the issue of Islam for years now (claiming he was concerned about it years before 911) would be up to speed on the simple fact, solidly attested several times in Bukhari hadith, that Mohammed married Aisha when she was 6 and had sexual intercourse with her for the first time when she was 9 (and it would be reasonable to suppose he kept doing it thereafter, frequently, in addition to other sexual perversions).

Henrik R Clausen said...

the mere aptness to cause offence was sufficient to qualify as the crime.

Welcome to the Brave New World, or 1984, whichever is more suitable!

This constitutes Victory of the Offended.

Anonymous said...

Hesperado: I enjoyed your compare and contrast of the treatment of children by Jesus versus Mohammed - with Jesus as a child protector and Mohammed as a child abuser.

-----

Based on the posting of Lawrence Auster regarding Mohammed and his "marriage" to Aisha, I have ZERO respect for Lawrence Auster. So, let's take his points one by one:

Aisha was Mohammed's wife - and the daughter of his closest friend and first Caliph, Abu Bekr, and a prominent and honored figure in the Islamic community.

Aisha was six years old (which was far beneath any reasonable adult age of consent) when Mohammed decided to forcibly "marry" her - to the Islamically-documented shock of her father - who must have known that he would face death if he denied Mohammed his pedophile fantasy.

Aisha was Mohammed's favorite wife.

Mohammed preferred a six year old "wife" to his many adult wives - and sex slaves. Well now, that behavior seems to fit with the definition that a pedophile prefers to participate in sexual acts with young children.

Aisha was the wife whose opinion he consulted most often.

So, Mohammed as a fully grown man "consulted" a six year old girl? What did Mohammed "consult" Aisha about?

Someone please explain to me the difference between wife and child sex slave for Mohammed - and then for Lawrence Auster?

The Austrian ruling clears the way for modern pedophilia - and human trafficking of girls - to be called "marriage" in Western lands as is already the case in Islamic lands.

Remember that Islamic men often "buy" their young "brides" from poor families....

Henrik Ræder said...

Aisha was Mohammed's favorite wife.

For a reason: Of all the women he had, only having sex with her was a direct source of inspiration for the Quran.

Anonymous said...

"Aisha was Mohammed's favorite wife."

"For a reason: Of all the women he had, only having sex with her was a direct source of inspiration for the Quran."

Yes, except we have to take the word of a stark raving mad mass murdering pedophile rapist and genocidal maniac or his duped followers as to what inspired Mohammed to "write" the Koran.

Based on Mohammed's extensively documented and copied pedophilia, it's realistic to conclude that Mohammed preferred to have forced sexual relations with little girls.