The War on Free Speech Marches Strong in Europe

in #politics5 years ago (edited)

Daring to speak our minds and say what we think is becoming more restricted in our current era of political correctness, NPC group-think culture, protecting "feelings" and not allowing speech that offends others. Thought crimes are being added to the law books, like is the case in Europe where saying things against a religious figure is a now a crime.


Made by @krnel from pixabay, Anon126/Public Domain/wikimedia

The European Court heard an appeal by a 47-year-old women convicted of by the Vienna Regional Criminal Court in 2011. What as her crime? Calling the "Prophet Mohammed" a pedophile. She appealed to various courts that her freedom of speech was violated by convicting her of a crime for speaking.

Mrs. S as she is referred to, gave 2 lectures or seminars discussing the marriage of the "Prophet Mohammed" with a 6-year-old girl. She said Mohammed liked to do it with children:

"... A 56-year-old and a six-year-old? ... What do we call it, if it is not paedophilia?"

The girl, named Aisha, was married to Mohammed at "Consummated" the marriage when she was 9-years-old. Is it that Austria doesn't like the inaccuracy of claiming Mohammed did it with a 6 year old? Her conviction was for "disparaging religious doctrines", for which she was ordered to pay a fine of 480 Euros plus legal fees.

The European Court of Human stated:

The Court found in particular that the domestic courts comprehensively assessed the wider context of the applicant’s statements and carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria.

It held that by considering the impugned statements as going beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate, and by classifying them as an abusive attack on the Prophet of Islam which could stir up prejudice and threaten religious peace, the domestic courts put forward relevant and sufficient reasons.

So the problem wasn't that she was off by 3 years about Mohammed having "sex" (or raping) a little girl. Being off by 3 year wasn't "objective" enough. Plus, talking about it would somehow "violate" the "rights" of "protecting" others' "feeling". That's the bullshit PC/NPC world we live in.

The part about classifying her speech "as an abusive attack on the Prophet of Islam which could stir up prejudice and threaten religious peace" is reminiscent of Tommy Robinson who was convicted of a crime (contempt of court) for protesting and exposing the Muslim pedophiles and rapists that were in court for trial, which resulted in him getting sent to prison.

But Mrs. S didn't say anything that called for violence against Muslims. She even gave her talks in public, as she argued to the EU Court that "her criticism of Islam occurred in the framework of an objective and lively discussion which contributed to a public debate".

The EU Court ruled there was no violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) and "justified" the ruling of her conviction by the Austrian courts. Rights to free speech mean nothing anymore when it could threaten the sanctity of people's "feelings".

Was anyone forced to listen to her? Why can't she say what she wants, especially when it relays the information from a religious book (albeit with minor inaccuracies)? She was being peaceful. There was no violence or call for violence. No coercion to make people do anything. But the court didn't like what she said with her free speech, and in response they are the ones who used violence and coercion to extort money from her. They don't care about an objective debate, they just want to silence you for speaking certain things.

Get ready to pay fines and go to jail if you dare speak out and say something that isn't popular or accepted by the socially engineered "consensus" reality and group-thinking majority.


Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.


If you appreciate and value the content, please consider: Upvoting, Sharing or Reblogging below.
Follow me for more content to come!


My goal is to share knowledge, truth and moral understanding in order to help change the world for the better. If you appreciate and value what I do, please consider supporting me as a Steem Witness by voting for me at the bottom of the Witness page.

Sort:  

I think religion is an idea, and ideas must be free to debate and criticize. People have rights, ideas don't.

Well said, it amuses me people get so butt-hurt over religion.

You got a 12.33% upvote from @ptbot courtesy of @discernente!
Delegate STEEM POWER and start earning 100% daily payouts ( no commission ).
Visit https://ptbot.ga for details.

The war on free speech is actually over in the EU. Free speech lost. A majority of the population is either onboard with restricting "hurtful" speech or has been cowed into submission by politically correct social justice intimidation. The only thing that will break that conditioning is if the population gets sick of the increase in violent crime and sexual abuse that has been allowed to take place in the name of tolerance. That too is an uphill battle since the EU issued press recommendations not to identify the name, race, ethnicity, nationality, color or any other identifying characteristics that could lead to "discrimination" and most news outlets are voluntarily doing so.

To make sure free speech doesn't ever rise from the grave, articles 11 & 13 of the EU copyright directive were passed in the initial round of voting despite almost universal resistance by the population. The next and final vote is set for January and the unelected technocrats are hammering out the final changes behind closed doors now, which should reset the voting process but of course does not. If 11 & 13 pass in January, they will have an enforcement mechanism to silence and justify the persecution of information sharing online. I repeat, the war is over. The only thing that will restore it is (hopefully peaceful) political revolution.

Yeah it seems the losses are too great for triumph over this insanity. Chaos can teach, and people will need more of it before they are snapped out of their somnambulist complacency :/ Now we can't know anything about anyone because that makes them different from others lol. Well, let those differences eat up and destroy the world because you want to ignore them...

Yeah, politicians don't care what people really want, it's all a big shit show :/

Thought crimes? Sounds more and more like Orwell's 1984.

I think most people today have too much freedom and too little worries since they afford to be offended by things others say.

I've read and learned a lot about the second world war. The generations that fought in it and the ones that followed right after were a lot more strong from a psychological point of view, because they had been through a lot of hardships, so they didn't care about 'thought offense'.

Nowadays people are offended by words. What if they had to eat rats in cold muddy trenches to survive another day?

Yeah, maybe things are "too good" and they need to find things to make problems when they don't matter than much and violate principles of freedom. If things were harsh, they woulnd't care at all about these made up problems...

I argue, what about our feelings? Those calling for all this tolerance in regards to sick twisted shit are among the most intolerant, hateful people I have seen. Frankly, I am tired of hearing from these people. At some point the citizens will need to check their politicians and their financial backers as they run out of corner to back into.

For the citizens to check their politicians, I think citizens need to check themselves first :/ People are lost under a barrage of bullshit that they don't know what's what...

The thing I don’t really understand about this whole thing and the huge offence everyone takes is why it’s ok for us to openly call catholic priests pedos and child rapists etc and nobody really gets offended or cares. Sure some people might find it offensive, others might look at facts, cases or statements and believe it to be true. It’s all about free speech, but why does making one statement about a particular belief and a open view about this always cause so much more uproar and consequences?

Yes it's odd, the whole left has this great fancy and love affair with Islam for some reason... especially in Europe where they want to promote more immigration from the Arabic countries.

Europe is falling through an abyss, once it was a creator of culture, art, science and technology, today they are killing all the principles that made Europe great.

The censorship in this case is just a symptom of how bad things are there, when you are forbidden to talk about the things that are a problem, then you must ignore them, and when that happens, the problem becomes bigger until you no longer It is possible to do nothing to avoid it.

Yup, right on, ignorance begets more and allows decay to surmount around you while you try to deny what is right in front of you.

and this is only the beginning. Now private companies start to censor us but this is only stage 1. The governments will claim that in the current situation of chaos they have to step in to "guarantee" freedom of speech in online media. They will use this argument to take controll of digital media and try to destroy open blogging.

Good that we already have the solution of decentralised media ready.

Yup, engineered chaos to implement "order" that is a mockery and runs in the opposite direction.

It's a shame but if you think about it, these freedoms don't have much space in the greater context of the elites control over people. It's only been a matter of time before they really started to erode.
What confuses me a bit is this whole NPC business. What does it mean exactly? I just keep thinking of NPC's from video games lol

I thought it meant Non Political Correctness. But yeah, if you think of an NPC, it's not a real player, just a scripted program, which is what is being referred to by some ppl being NPCs. They are running off the socially engineered script and conditioning/programming for how to think and act.

Ostensibly to be P.C., these judges are defending the practice of pedophilia. Eighty years ago, you would have to think twice about speaking your mind in Europe and now things have gone full circle.

What are the names of these judges?

Yeah, things are flipped around :/

Curated for #informationwar (by @wakeupnd)

  • Our purpose is to encourage posts discussing Information War, Propaganda, Disinformation and other false narratives. We currently have over 10,000 Steem Power and 20+ people following the curation trail to support our mission.

  • Join our discord and chat with 250+ fellow Informationwar Activists.

  • Join our brand new reddit! and start sharing your Steemit posts directly to The_IW, via the share button on your Steemit post!!!

  • Connect with fellow Informationwar writers in our Roll Call! InformationWar - Leadership/Contributing Writers/Supporters: Roll Call

Ways you can help the @informationwar

  • Upvote this comment.
  • Delegate Steem Power. 25 SP 50 SP 100 SP
  • Join the curation trail here.
  • Tutorials on all ways to support us and useful resources here

Thanks for the support ;)

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.36
TRX 0.12
JST 0.040
BTC 70846.59
ETH 3567.69
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.79