As we reported a couple of weeks ago, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled against Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff and upheld the Austrian court’s conviction of her for denigrating the beliefs of an officially recognized religion by uttering “hate speech” against the prophet Mohammed.

For those who came in late, the hateful words uttered by Elisabeth were in the form of a rhetorical question about Mohammed’s sexual relationship with a 9-year-old girl: “What would you call it, if not ‘pedophilia’?”

The court stipulated to the facts of the case: Mohammed married a 6-year-old girl and consummated the marriage when she was nine. The defendant was simply not permitted to call it “pedophilia”. For her impertinent rhetorical question she was convicted and fined, and the various courts of appeal have upheld her conviction, all the way up to the ECHR.

There is one further level of appeal within the ECHR itself. I can never remember the name of the body, and always have to look it up — my tendency is to think of it as the “Inner Sanctum”, but its official name is the “Grand Chamber of the Court”.

Elisabeth has decided to make that final appeal, but it’s expensive, and her defense fund was cleaned out to pay for all the earlier levels of appeal. To run this one final lap she will need your help.

To that end, the Center for Security Policy has set up a new fundraising web page for Elisabeth: Friends of Free Speech. I invite anyone who wants to contribute to go over there and make a donation.

In the following interview with Vlad Tepes, Elisabeth talks about the history of her case (nine years of it!), her plans for the future, and the parlous state of free speech in Europe:

For previous posts on the “hate speech” prosecution of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, see Elisabeth’s Voice: The Archives.