Beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate
The Daily Mail (yes; sorry):
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled a woman convicted by an Austrian court of calling the Prophet Mohammed a paedophile did not have her freedom of speech rights infringed.
The woman, named only as Mrs. S, 47, from Vienna, was said to have held two seminars in which she discussed the marriage between the Prophet Mohammad and a six-year old girl, Aisha.
According to scripture the marriage was consummated when Aisha was just nine years old, leading Mrs S. to say to her class Mohammad ‘liked to do it with children’.
She also reportedly said ‘… A 56-year-old and a six-year-old? … What do we call it, if it is not paedophilia?’
It would be nice to know what kind of seminars, where, for what purpose, with what credentials…but even so, it’s not obvious what it means to “convict” someone of calling the Prophet Mohammed a paedophile, since it’s not obvious that doing so is a crime. Yes, fucking a girl of nine is in fact paedophilia, and it’s against the law in places with humane laws. I guess I’m now a criminal under Austrian and European law.
Mrs S. was later convicted in February 2011 by the Vienna Regional Criminal Court for disparaging religious doctrines and ordered her to pay a fine of 480 euros plus legal fees.
So Austria has a law against disparaging religious doctrines? That’s insane. This isn’t the 12th century; if we can’t disparage religious doctrines what can we disparage? We need to be free to disparage all forms of illegitimate power, and religion is high on that list.
After having her case thrown out by both the Vienna Court of Appeal and Austria’s Supreme Court, the European Court of Human rights backed the courts’ decision to convict Mrs S. on Thursday.
The ECHR found there had been no violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In a statement on Thursday the ECHR said: ‘The Court found in particular that the domestic courts comprehensively assessed the wider context of the applicant’s statements and carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria.’
That’s not peace; it’s forced silence.
‘It held that by considering the impugned statements as going beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate, and by classifying them as an abusive attack on the Prophet of Islam which could stir up prejudice and threaten religious peace, the domestic courts put forward relevant and sufficient reasons.’
I get that they don’t want people stirring up hatred against Muslims. On the other hand have they given enough thought to the way this tactful refusal to call fucking a nine year old girl what it is can teach believers that it’s ok for men to fuck nine year old girls right now? Are “religious feelings” more important than that?
H/t Author
Uh, what? This is not a right! Under any system of rights…you have the right to have your religious worship the way you want, but not to have your religious feelings protected.
Okay, so now we get to convict the next person who says nasty things about atheists? Because that is insulting our religious feelings – which is the strong, intense, and truly sincere feeling that religion is messed up.
Can we believe the daily mail though?
If you work on the Sabbath, you insult my religious feelings. (Applies to different conceptions of which day the Sabbath is.)
If you deny the truth that Jesus is Lord, you insult my religious feelings.
If you deny that there is no god but Allah, you insult my religious feelings.
If you are not my religion, you insult my religious feelings.
Isn’t this kind of law a reductio ad absurdum waiting to happen?
Anna @ 2 – well that’s why I said “yes; sorry” at the beginning. I don’t go to the Mail for opinion, but this is publicly available information. I see no reason to think the Mail faked this story.
I haven’t been able to find the full decision (the ECHR website just will not deliver for me), but eh release refers to extensive evaluation of context and previous decisions. Before passing final judgement I’d like to see that.
On the other hand, for all Europe’s good points, I find it bizarre that religious sentiment still gets such a major pass and presumption of protection. In fact I find it abhorrent. I also have no problem describing sex with a 9 yo as paedophilia, whether religiously sanctioned or not.
If the judges, or prosecutors, just read into the record the relevant Suras/Hadith…They too will be guilty. Every copy of the Koran is an ‘insult to Islam’ because it contains the passages that us Kaffirs aren’t supposed to know about.