It’s time for adult conversations about Islam

Feb 15, 2019 by Jill

from Christian Concern:

Is Islam affecting our freedom of speech? Is it altering our democracy? Roger Kiska looks at the recent ruling of an Austrian woman convicted of ‘hate speech’ for suggesting a truth about Muhammad, and concludes that if we are to uphold freedom of speech, then “offence is a small price to pay”.

Speech is Becoming Anything But Free

In November, the European Court of Human Rights delivered a judgment in a case involving freedom of expression which sent shock waves through the legal and political world, and beyond. The facts are fairly straightforward. Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was convicted under Austrian criminal law for disparaging religious doctrines by suggesting, during a series of small public lectures, that Muhammad might rightly be called a paedophile for consummating his marital relationship with Aisha when she was only 9 years old.

The European Court of Human Rights went to great lengths to suggest that the clinical definition of paedophilia requires a tendency towards being sexually attracted to children. In upholding the criminal conviction as falling within Austria’s competency to define its own ‘hate’ speech laws, they argued that since there was no record that Muhammad had been sexually active with children other than Aisha and that child brides were common during that period, that her words amounted to criminal ‘hate’ speech.

It was announced by supporters of Mrs Sabaditsch-Wolff this week that her legal team has filed an appeal to the Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg Court challenging the ruling of the lower chamber.

An objective observer may ask why the ‘hate’ speech conviction of an Austrian woman for statements she made to a small audience should matter to those of us in the United Kingdom.

Read here

See also: Two urgent steps Britain must take to defeat the Islamist threat, by Ghanem Nuseibeh, The Conservative Woman

From fatwa to fear: 30 years on from ‘The Satanic Verses’ affair, by Tim Dieppe, Christian Concern