Many thanks to JLH for translating this op-ed from Die Presse about the ECHR’s decision on the “hate speech” case against Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff:

A New Form of Censorship is Spooking Through Europe

Guest Commentary: Critique of a problematic decision by the European Court of Human Rights

By Ralph Schöllhammer

November 19,2018

Much has been reported in the past few days on the decision by the European Court of Human Rights that the designation of the Prophet Mohammed as “pedophilic” in the context of a 2009 seminar led by the Austrian Islam-critic Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff is not legally covered by the right of free expression of opinion. The waves caused by this decision were detectable even in the USA, where the popular Fox show, “Tucker Carlson” dedicated a full segment to the case.

Independent of whether this was a “scandalous decision,” it indicates a disturbing trend: a re-clericalization of public space in which — under cover of religion — discussions of broad interest are strangled in the cradle. The decision weighs the right to freedom of expression against the right to protection of religious feelings, to decide whether the latter must prevail in order to preserve religious peace in Austria.

Intention is Problematic

The statement designating Mohammed’s behavior as pedophilic is thus moved to the neighborhood of biased persecution, and a new legal situation is created. According to the European Court, it is not the statement as such that is the problem, but the intent with which it was made. That is, not to state an objective, debatable point, but to be contemptuous of Mohammed as an object of religious veneration.

Strictly speaking, “pedophilia” is not an expletive, but the description of a sexual interest in pre-pubescent children. That this practice is so widely condemned bespeaks progress. But this situation is not so long-standing as one might think. In the first half of the 19th century, the average age of European prostitutes was 16, and it was not unusual to encounter 14-year-olds in bordellos. On the streets of 1790 London, it was possible to walk by an eleven-year-old prostitute without experiencing a moral qualm.

The situation has improved since then, because segments of the (often religiously inspired) civilian society found these conditions intolerable and were able to bring the majority of society to their point of view. The same thing was true of the abolition of slavery — an institution whose existence had been viewed as more or less God-given until the beginning of the Enlightenment.

Anyone who reads the works of 19th century social reformers, from William Wilberforce to Harriet Beecher Stowe, will conclude that their intent, too, was to be contemptuous of contemptible situations — and fortunately this was already covered by the right of freedom expression.