More on the Viennese Show Trial

Further to yesterday’s posting regarding the hate crime conviction against Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff for the crime of denigration of the teachings of a legally recognized religion, the Brussels journal has posted an analysis of the judgment and its implications, which makes interesting and indeed entertaining reading.

It should be noted that the offence for which Sabaditsch-Wolff was convicted did not initially feature amongst the charges originally brought against her. The religious denigration charge was in fact added by judge Bettina Neubauer (pictured above) late in the proceedings when it became clear the original charge of Incitement of racial hatred was not going to succeed.

Austrian law allows a judge to bring additional charges during a case, but this is rarely done, and the fact that the judge did so in this case is clear evidence that the Austrian authorities were determined to achieve a conviction against Sabaditsch-Wolff, whatever the cost.

The charge was based on one statement which the lecturer made when she described how the prophet Mohamed married his wife Aisha when she was six years of age and consummated the marriage three years later when the child was nine, adding "If this does not constitute paedophilia, what does?”

The basis of the judgment makes fascinating reading. Judge Neubauer found that it was not legally acceptable to apply the label ‘paedophile’ to Muhammad, for two distinct reasons:

1) Apart from the marriage to Aisha, which was formalized when she was 6 and consummated at the age of 9, Muhammad had many other women, in wedlock, as mistresses, or as war booty. This documents the fact that Muhammad did not have a primary sexual attraction directed towards minors.

2) The marriage, and thus the sexual relations with Aisha, did not end when she reached puberty, but continued until she was 18 and Muhammad died. This further underscores the fact that Muhammad was not attracted to her primarily due to her being a minor.

You can make of that quite incredible logic what you will. However, on the face of it this verdict Would arguably enable a rapist to deny rape on the basis that he usually has consensual sex.

The judgment also means that the claim that prophet Mohamed had sexual intercourse with a pre-pubescent girl, is no longer merely stated in holy text, such as the Hadith, it is also now a legally declared fact which has been confirmed by the courts of a major European nation.

I somehow doubt that's what was intended

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The whole article can be read here, and is recommended. Further developments in this case are best followed at english.savefreespeech.org. This is also where it is possible to support Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff financially. This is urgently needed, for in contrast to the prosecution, which is funded by the state, she has to foot all her expenses personally.

When the truth becomes the crime

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff and Geert Wilders

Last Thursday a court in Vienna found lecturer and human rights activist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff guilty of one count of “denigration of religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion” and she was fined the sum of €480. A relatively small sum, but she now has a hate crime conviction against her name.

Sabaditsch-Wolff's crime was to state, at a series of seminars about political Islam, that the Prophet Mohamed had sex with a child, his nine year old wife Aisha. Although acquitted of the more serious charge of inciting racial hatred, she was also convicted of being a “serial offender” despite this being her first offence.

Elizabeth is a regular writer at the Gates of Vienna who have written extensively about her case, links to their various articles can be found here, meanwhile American writer Diana West who runs the Death of the Grown Up blog has addressed the case in a recent posting “Willkomen to the Caliphate”, where she effectively argues that the conviction was in fact on the basis of Sharia law, not European law or what still passes for Austrian law.

It is interesting to note that the court did not find that the defendant had lied, at one point the judge stated that Aisha was 18 but later acknowledged that she had in fact attained that age at the time of Mohamed's death. Indeed the fact that Mohamed married Aisha while she was a child is largely undisputed and accepted as fact by most Islamic scholars. Marriage between an older man and a pre-pubescent girl was not unusual in Islamic culture during the prophet's life and remains so today in some Islamic countries.

The truth of the claim was irrelevant to the court. To convict Sabaditsch-Wolff, it was not necessary to demonstrate her claims were untrue, they were true, but merely to prove, as the court did, that she told a truth which some Muslims found offensive.

This was by no means an isolated case. Also last week French journalist Éric Zemmour was found guilty of incitement to racial hatred after telling a TV chat show that drug dealers were mostly "blacks and Arabs".

Once again, the truth or otherwise of Zemmour's claim was irrelevant to his conviction for he spoke a truth which French law bars him from speaking. It is illegal in France to reveal the race of criminal offenders, or to report rates of ethnic offending, presumably because to do so would be to reveal the truth of Monsieur Zemmour's illegal words.

Meanwhile in Holland it has been announced that the trial against PVV leader Gerrt Wilders for discrimination and inciting hatred will recommence on March 14th. As in the other cases mentioned, the truth or otherwise of Mr Wilders' words will have no bearing on his prosecution, all that matters is that they have offended Muslims and questioned the state dogma of multiculturalism.

Like Sabaditsch-Wolff and Zemmour, Wilders could join the growing group of people convicted of, and punished for, telling the truth.

In Britain, as we all know BNP leader Nick Griffin was subjected to a politically motivated criminal prosecution for making statements which have since been proven to be true. Mr. Griffin's claims that gangs of Muslim paedophiles have been grooming white girls for sex, have been echoed by ex-Justice secretary Jack Straw, and confirmed by various journalists and leading police officers. However, as Judge Norman Jones informed Nick Griffin at his trial, that he was telling the truth was no defence against race hate charges.

Indeed, had it not been for the wisdom of a jury, who acquitted Griffin against the judge's advice, he would have gone to prison for the New World Order offence of telling the truth.

In fact the situation is worse than the judge implied, Judge Jones understated the truth, for we in Europe have gone beyond the point where the truth is merely no defence against race hate charges, the truth itself is now the crime.

The mad Orwellian creed of multiculturalism, which our rulers have imposed upon us has produced a reality where, when addressing the subject of race and religion the only act left to us, which is legal and permissible, is to lie.

Pan Atlantic Show trials - Part One

Despite the prosecution in the “hate speech” trial of Dutch Politician Geert Wilders having asked for all charges to be dismissed, the case is continuing. In addition the Judges have refused to hear evidence from 15 potential defence witnesses effectively whittling Mr. Wilders’ witness list down to three, from the original 18, while at the same time adding to the witness list against him the Muslims groups which initiated the complaints that led to his arrest.

Tellingly a verdict is expected on November the 5th

It is becoming troublingly clear to any honest observer, that, although the expression Kangaroo Court may not exist in Dutch, the reality most certainly appears to.
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Meanwhile, a less publicised but rather similar prosecution is taking place in Austria where another critic of Islam -- Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, is being prosecuted for "inciting hatred against a religious group" and "defamation of religion" in a lecture in 2009 on the "Islamization of Europe."

Details of the Sabaditsch-Wolff case can be read at the Brussels Journal and there is an interview with her at the Gates of Vienna