Defaming Muhammad does not fall under purview of free speech, European court rules

Fox News ^ | October 26, 2018 | Lucia I. Suarez Sang

[lowbridge]

The freedom of speech does not extend to include defaming the prophet of Islam, the European Court of Human rights ruled Thursday.

The Strasbourg-based ECHR ruled that insulting Islamic prophet Muhammad “goes beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate” and “could stir up prejudice and put at risk religious peace.”

The court’s decision comes after it rejected an Austrian woman’s claim that her previous conviction for calling Muhammad a pedophile, due to his marriage to a 6-year-old girl, violated her freedom of speech.

The ECHR ruled Austrian courts had “carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected.”

The woman, in her late 40s and identified only as E.S., claimed during two public seminars in 2009 that Muhammad’s marriage to a young girl was akin to “pedophilia.”

-snip

A Vienna court convicted her in 2011 of disparaging religious doctrines, ordering her to pay a $547 fine, plus legal costs. The ruling was later upheld by an Austrian appeals court.

[Redwood71]

Free speech (rules), in an islam fight?

rwood

[shanover]

WWII (in Europe) seems to have been a tremendous waste for America and not worth it if this in 2018 is the result.

[Steve_Seattle]

The woman did not “defame” Mohammed. She called him a pedophile, and Islamic sources themselves say that Mohammed married Aisha at 6 or 7 and consummated the marriage at 9 or 10, when he was in his fifties. That is well within our definition of “pedophile.”