In the middle of the night, I had a minor epiphany. It was an exchange of IMs via Skype with a friend and fighter for truth about doctrinal Islam, Viennese human rights and NGO leader, Elisabeth Sabaditsch Wolff.
She had just been informed by her counsel that her final appeal of decisions by municipal and state appellate courts for her 2011 conviction on hate speech charges would be heard by the Austrian Supreme Court on December 11, 2013.
What raced through my mind might there be justice yet in mittel Europa?
Perhaps I ruminated there could be a rollback of Shariah blasphemy codes in Europe?
The Virtual Caliphate of the 57 Member Organization of Islamic Cooperation encouraged adoption of these codes. The human rights rulings of the 56 member Organization for Security Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) (see also OSCE compilation) is composed of a broad swath of countries from Europe, Central Asia and North America with co-operating partners from many OIC members in the Middle East, Asia and Oceania. The OSCE Secretariat is conveniently located in Wolf’s hometown in the Vienna Hofburg, the Seat of the former Austrian Hungarian Empire. However as a leader in free speech advocacy NGOs like the Burgerbewegunga Pax Europa (Citizen movement Pax Europa) and the International Civil Liberties Alliance (ICLA} she and other colleagues have contested the adoption of Shariah compliant Blasphemy code s ) in proceedings of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODHIR) headquartered in Warsaw, Poland.
Wolff is one of the remarkable people in Europe contesting the imposition of Blasphemy Codes restricting her right and hundreds of millions of Europeans to criticize doctrinal Islam, a right guaranteed here in America under our First Amendment.
Unfortunately, a Constitutional right seemingly imperiled these days by Muslim advocacy and allied Civil liberties groups seeking to impose the false rubric of hate speech h. Wolf, as a young daughter of an Austrian diplomat and consular official in Chicago learned about those US Constitutional protections of Free Speech and the inalienable right to criticize a religion. Something that these days most American school districts refrain from teaching in basic Core Curricula because of politically correct multiculturalism. As a mother of a young daughter in Vienna. she sought in public lectures to discuss the de facto praise of pedophilia by Mohammed. He is the exemplar in Islamic Qur’anic doctrine, who in his 50′s consummated a marriage with his nine year old child bride, Aisha.
The subject of an expose by a leftist weekly in Vienna, Wolff was brought to trial in a mincipal court charged with violating hate speech and convicted under Austrian laws for criticizing a recognized religion.
We chronicled this in our interview with her in our collection, The West Speaks, published by the New English Review press. She has spoken of her experience in forums across the US.
Here is what she relayed of today’s developments regarding her case in the Austrian courts:
Dear friends, I have excellent news for you.
I have been informed that the Supreme Court will be hearing my case on Dec. 11h at 10 am.
Her lawyer told her this is to seen as a very positive sign as the court could have and would have thrown out the case in written form.
So, we may assume that the case will not be thrown out. This leaves us with the following two possibilities:
- I will be acquitted, or ;
- The case goes back to the lower courts.
The main question to be discussed is the merit/of what I said.
Does freedom of speech trump religious teachings?
Another positive sign; some of you may recall that my counsel had repeatedly endeavored to have the case tried in the media court. All motions were denied.
However, the gods are on our sides as by chance my case was allotted to the so-called media Senate.
It is very uncommon for the Supreme Court to deliberate as long as it did on my case (more than 11/2 years).
A source familiar with the case thinks the court may want to avoid a conviction by the European Court for Human Rights.
Wolff’s comment in our Skype IM exchange was:
What is happening now is not the final decision, ast we appealed for an exceptional legal redress.
By scheduling the hearing, the court appears to have decided that this case needs more discussion.
If justice is borne out in this upcoming proceeding of the Austrian Supreme Court for Wolf that would be a remarkable precedent in the EU. It would add to the acquittals in the Amsterdam District Court decision in the 2011 trial of the Hon. Geert Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV). It is also reflective of the April 2012 ambiguous decision of the Danish Supreme Court that denied truth as a defense while overturning a lower court conviction of Lars Hedegaard, executive editor of Dispatch International in Copenhagen. We wish Wolff the best result in the Austrian Supreme Court case. She and her daughter are anxiously awaiting the safe return home of her husband, a senior Austrian Army officer currently serving with the EU Training Mission in Mali.
Brava to Mother Courage in Vienna.
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