Complications of ECHR's ruling on defamation of Prophet Muhammad.

Since I will be discussing the European court system I should probably remind people that the ruling was made by the European Court Of Human Rights (ECHR) which is not EU court. It is court of Council Of Europe which is an older organisation than the EU. Nevertheless, the court has power over European countries and as such its rulings could be read similar light as the highest court of a nation.

Ruling on the matter can be found here[alt]. The case has some case law references which I am not going to look at here.

Applicant is Austrian how held seminars titled "Basic Information on Islam" ("Grundlagen des Islams") at the Freedom Party Education Institute (Bildungsinstitut der Freiheitlichen Partei Österreichs). Seminars were public and advertised to the public. One of the participants was an undercover journalist. The journalist reported to the police who then launched an investigation which lead to a charge of inciting hatred (Verhetzung or Article 283 of the Criminal Code). The prosecution drop the inciting hatred charge but the applicant was convicted of disparaging religious doctrines (Herabwürdigung religiöser Lehren or article 188 of the Criminal Code) concerning three statements which Vienna Regional Criminal Court found:

"publicly disparaging an object of veneration of a domestic church or religious society - namely Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam - in a manner capable of arousing justified indignation."

She did try to appeal in Austria. However, both the appeals court and the supreme court agreed with the lower court's opinion.

Statements essentially boiled down to Muhammad being a paedophile. Most of this relates to Muhammad's wife Aisha who doesn't appear in Quran far as I know. She appears in the Hadiths but there is a debate about her age. She could have been six when their marriage started but Muhammed parently waited until she was nine before marriage was as consummated. ECHR on its ruling doesn't analyse the factual bases of the allegation. Rather it states:

". . . (potential) effects of impugned statements depend, to a certain degree, on the situation in the country . . . the Court therefore considers that the domestic authorities had a wide margin of appreciation in the instant case, as they were in a better position to evaluate which statements were likely to disturb the religious peace in their country."

I have to disagree court on this matter. Even though it is a nice ruling in the sense that all is not lost since any member of the Council Of Europe can make their own decisions. This could include protection on the "Muhammad is paedophile" debate far as I understand. However, human rights shouldn't change when you cross a national border. In reality, sure, EU China "border" our rights will change but what is the point of the ECHR. To keep Europe on the same page on human rights? Also, I would like to note that local authorities even though closer to the pulse of the culture of the country perhaps are still too far away from their knowledge to matter. The Internet has caused individuals may have a more common culture with country five countries over than one's local culture. There fore local authorities really can't say what cultural behavior citizen should have.

So why did the court think that this ruling was ethical? Well, they may have had a technical reason. Earlier in the judgment:

"41. While the applicant stressed that her statements had never been aimed at disparaging Muhammad, she did not dispute the legitimate purpose of criminal convictions under Article 188 of the Criminal Code, namely to protect religious peace. The Court endorses the Government’s assessment that the impugned interference pursued the aim of preventing disorder by safeguarding religious peace, as well as protecting religious feelings, which corresponds to protecting the rights of others within the meaning of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention."

The applicant may be having her cake and eating it too by not trying to dispute "protect religious peace" bullshit, she is after all native European Christian woman which means this ruling should cause the citizen to defend our own Judeo-Christian culture [source]. So I don't think she minds too much about the law since the zombie said he went to heaven. At least the irony here is that Christians wrote these laws. She rather tries to say that her claims are:

". . . a historically proven fact and raised the question whether this could be regarded as paedophilia . . ."

which fails since the court didn't do any analyses on this.

Is interesting to read the applicant's complaint to the Grand Chamber (second level) of ECHR (which was rejected) since she does make the argument that the opposition never proved that violence was caused or asked to occur by the speech she made. I haven't read did the Austrian government made any such claim but ECHR doesn't say it has. I will go further and say I haven't seen any evidence suggesting that "religious feelings" are worth projecting. When the court say "justified indignation" to me that means a mod rule. These are just people who don't like some being right or hitting in the spot. I mean these are actual words from the judgment:

The Court reiterates that a religious group must tolerate the denial by others of their religious beliefs and even the propagation by others of doctrines hostile to their faith . . .

. . . applicant’s statements . . . could only be understood as having been aimed at demonstrating that Muhammad was not a worthy subject of worship (see paragraph 22 above).

How the court does not see the contradiction here! Ignoring the court's wording of worship propagation one religiousness or non-seriousness means that one was turned one to another by telling that object of veneration/worship is not worthy of it. Unless the court is saying that it is fine to go after atheists and turn them religious but not folk from other religions. This would make the propagation of atheism illegal so I don't understand what the court is saying.

For my final point. How did ruling project peace between religious groups? If you read anything from the applicant she is clearly saying that Christians are prosecuted since their symbol of veneration isn't protected. I disagree with her since fast glance I don't see these comparable in eyes of the court, but doesn't this now say to these people that they are right. That they should be more violent against Muslims since they aren't allowed to make arguments. But no bigger problem is Freedom Party not why Freedom Party exists.