Monday, December 26, 2011

“A Black Day for Austria”

Soeren Kern has written an article at the Hudson Institute about the “hate speech” case against Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff. Some excerpts are below:

“A Black Day for Austria”
by Soeren Kern

An Austrian appellate court has upheld the conviction of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a Viennese housewife and anti-Jihad activist, for “denigrating religious beliefs” after giving a series of seminars about the dangers of radical Islam.

The December 20 ruling shows that while Judaism and Christianity can be disparaged with impunity in postmodern multicultural Austria, speaking the truth about Islam is subject to swift and hefty legal penalties.

Although the case has major implications for freedom of speech in Austria, as well as in Europe as a whole, it has received virtually no press coverage in the American mainstream media.

Sabaditsch-Wolff’s Kafkaesque legal problems began in November 2009, when she presented a three-part seminar about Islam to the Freedom Education Institute, a political academy linked to the Austrian Freedom Party.

A glossy socialist weekly magazine, NEWS — all in capital letters — planted a journalist in the audience to secretly record the first two lectures. Lawyers for the leftwing publication then handed the transcripts over to the Viennese public prosecutor’s office as evidence of hate speech against Islam, according to Section 283 of the Austrian Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch, StGB). Formal charges against Sabaditsch-Wolff were filed in September 2010; and her bench trial, presided on by one multicultural judge and no jury, began November 23, 2010.

On the first day of the trial, however, it quickly became clear that the case against Sabaditsch-Wolff was not as air-tight as prosecutors had made it out to be. The judge in the case, Bettina Neubauer, pointed out, for example, that only 30 minutes of the first seminar had actually been recorded.

Neubauer also noted that some of the statements attributed to Sabaditsch-Wolff were offhand comments made during breaks and not a formal part of the seminar. Moreover, only a few people heard these comments, not 30 or more — the criterion under Austrian law for a statement being “public.” In any event, Sabaditsch-Wolff says her comments were not made in a public forum because the seminars were held for a select group of people who had registered beforehand.

More importantly, many of the statements attributed to Sabaditsch-Wolff were actually quotes she made directly from the Koran and other Islamic religious texts. Fearing that the show trial would end in a mistrial, the judge abruptly suspended hearings until January 18, 2011, ostensibly to give him time to review the tape recordings, but also to give the prosecution more time to shore up its case.

On January 18, after realizing that the original charge would not hold up, the judge — not the prosecutor — informed Sabaditsch-Wolff that in addition to the initial charge of hate speech, she was now being charged with “denigrating religious symbols of a recognized religious group.” Sabaditsch-Wolff’s lawyer immediately demanded that the trial be postponed so that the defense could prepare a new strategy.

When the trial resumed on February 15, 2011, Sabaditsch-Wolff was exonerated of the first charge of “incitement” because the court found that here statements were not made in a “provocative” manner.

But Sabaditsch-Wolff was convicted of the second charge against her, namely “denigration of religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion,” according to Section 188 of the Austrian Criminal Code.

The judge ruled that Sabaditsch-Wolff committed a crime by stating in her seminars about Islam that the Islamic prophet Mohammed was a pedophile (Sabaditsch-Wolff’s actual words were “Mohammed had a thing for little girls.”)

The judge rationalized that Mohammed’s sexual contact with nine-year-old Aisha could not be considered pedophilia because Mohammed continued his marriage to Aisha until his death. According to this line of thinking, Mohammed had no exclusive desire for underage girls; he was also attracted to older females because Aisha was 18 years old when Mohammed died.

Read the rest at the Hudson Institute.


For previous posts on the “hate speech” prosecution of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, see Elisabeth’s Voice: The Archives.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Okay, no more Mr. Nice Guy. Muzzies are forever denigrating the Jewish and Christian beliefs.

The evidence of this practice is so abundant that it won't be hard to find muzzie inciters of hatred against non-muslims. Demand that the state attorneys bring charges, using the Sabaditsch ruling. If necessary, bring mandamus actions to force the state attorneys to do their jobs and bring the charges.

Anonymous said...

I have old finnish book about muhammed and there 6 years old girl gets married and after 3 years she -with toys and dolls!- moves to muhammad´s home.

Finnish lurker

Anestis canelidis said...

I wonder when it will be our turn to face this type of kangaroo court?

Will the OIC, the UN, and Hilary Clinton have their way with our free speech?

Indeed, it is a sad day for Austria and the world. A truly black day for all of us who believe in the freedom of expression and the truth.

I am sure the commie socialist in Austria are gleeful at the outcome of this trial.

Anonymous said...

Very well written. Very clear. Any chance of a translation of Section 188?

Nick

Anonymous said...

did they (Mo and Aisha) have any kids?

Lawrence said...

The difference seems to be that pointing out the "truths" of Islamist doctrine is illegal in that we are painting their holy preachers as liars. It is the fact we are proving their holy men to be liars that gets everyone's panties in a bunch.

While our lies against Christianity, et.al., are baseless in and of themselves. There is nothing in these lies that effectively paints these Holy speakers as false speakers.

In other words.

Lying about a Christian preacher doesn't denigrate the truth of that speaker.

Speaking the truth about an Islamist preacher, proving them liars, does denigrate that preacher.

What is at the heart of this "secularized hate-speach" problem is the public denigration of another person's ideology regardless of the person's message.

What this tells us is that as long as faith-based people place secular leaders in charge of our nations, they will always rule in context of their secular ideologies above our faith-based ideologies.

Secular leaders will defend faith-based views, of course, but defend according to their secular ideologies regarding faith. That is untill one faith or the other takes over. In this case, to who's faith does secular culture wish to succumb? Christian laws based on forgiveness, or Islamic Sharia based on punishment?

A conundrum for the secular who's future survival is now based on taking sides in an ideological war.

The secular anti-Christian meme is now become the lesser of their two evils as they find themselves stuck between Islamist aggression against the Christan West. The Christain West in wich secularism is allowed to flourish, versus Sharia culture wherein secularism is deal with via a dull knife to the neck.