Wednesday, November 30, 2011

The Political Persecution of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, Part 1

ESW Copenhagen Nov. 2010

The first part of my three-part series on the “hate speech” case against Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff has been published at FrontPage Mag. I’ll post all three parts as a single article over the coming weekend. In the meantime, here are some excerpts:

On February 15, 2011, the Austrian Counterjihad activist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was convicted of “hate speech” in a Vienna courtroom for what she said in a private seminar about Muhammad and Islam.

The original charge was “incitement to hatred”. On the second day of her trial, the judge at her own discretion added a second charge, “denigration of religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion.” Elisabeth was acquitted of the first charge, but convicted of the second. She was sentenced to pay a fine of €480. Her case is currently being appealed to Austria’s highest court. If the verdict is upheld, and she refuses to pay the fine, she will spend two months in jail.

How could this happen in a modern European democratic state which recognizes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and enshrines the right to free speech in its Constitution?

Read the rest at FrontPage Mag.

6 comments:

Anestis said...

She is a brave woman but if worse comes to worse I hope she is allowed to come to the USA to escape jail time. I wonder when this will start to happen here, despite or First Amendment rights. With Obama in office this is possible

Unknown said...

Europe is so messed up. In any country where one is prosecuted for one's opinions that country stops being a "democracy" and starts being a tyrannical governemnt.

medge said...

Thanks for helping her out here Baron..She's one great lady that's for sure..Oh the sad tragic irony of it all..GoV against Vienna itself..

Anonymous said...

this is very concerning but on a positive note the establishment's behaviour is indicative of it being forced into a corner

Anonymous said...

It is not a corner they ought to have backed into...and it isn't like anything is holding them there but their own obstinate stupidity and determination to impose their will on everyone else.

Those who refuse to listen to the voice of the people deserve whatever happens to them, even if the country is not well-served by things coming to that point. But the decision whether there will be a peaceful revolution in favor of individual freedom inevitably doesn't lie with the people themselves. The people have too much to lose. They really are backed into a corner from which the only escapes are victory or death.

The socialist elite can give up their scheme to "dissolve the people and elected a new one" at any time, and they lose nothing by doing so except for their private delusions of ultimate power and authority. The people cannot afford to give up their right to self-determination, particularly in the face of the current program of genocide against them.

If one side doesn't relent, the issue must come to civil war...and one side cannot relent without being murdered. That places the entire responsibility of coming to a peaceful resolution on the heads of those who have, by their importunities against the expressed will of the people, made it clear that they do not value peace in any meaningful sense.

Chiu Chun-Ling.

Anonymous said...

Those times when one could be punished for holding an opinon are over. Now you can even get punished for presenting pure facts.