Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff's appeal to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) was just rejected. Pursuing the principle that publicly discussing Islam and related matters should not lead to arrest and jail, the Middle East Forum had helped fund her important case with its implications for all of Europe.
Ms. Sabaditsch-Wolff has been criminally convicted under Austria's "defamation of religion" law for "publicly denigrating" the Islamic prophet Muhammad "in a way likely to arouse justified indignation." Her crime? Asking in a private seminar: "A 56-year-old and a six-year-old? What do we call it, if it is not pedophilia?" She was referring to Islamic texts stating that Muhammad married Aisha when she was six years old and consummated their marriage when she was nine.
"Since the Rushdie affair thirty years ago, criticism of Islam has become hazardous throughout the West," said Marc Fink, director of the Forum's Legal Project, which protects the public discussion of Islam in the West. "It has become fashionable to ban and even criminalize 'hate speech' and 'defamation of religion,' but these terms are poorly defined and the attendant laws are inconsistently applied. [The Middle East Forum] Read more
