Rationalizing Our Surrender

That is a disturbing basis on which to license speech. The full
decision goes even further, and is a revealing glimpse of the state’s
willingness to shrivel “free speech” to the point where the term is rendered meaningless:

“The Regional Court further stated that anyone who
wished to exercise their rights under Article 10 of the Convention was
subject to duties and responsibilities, such as refraining from making statements which hurt others without reason and therefore did not contribute to a debate of public interest.
A balancing exercise between the rights under Article 9 on the one hand
and those under Article 10 on the other needed to be carried out. The
court considered that the applicant’s statements were not statements of
fact, but derogatory value judgments which exceeded the permissible
limits. It held that the applicant had not intended to approach the topic in an objective manner,
but had directly aimed to degrade Muhammad. The court stated that child
marriages were not the same as paedophilia, and were not only a
phenomenon of Islam, but also used to be widespread among the European
ruling dynasties.”

Great. So maybe in Rotherham they should just start marrying the
six-year-olds and all will be well. It should hardly be necessary to
state that freedom of speech except for “statements which hurt others”
and do “not contribute to a debate” or “approach the topic in an
objective manner” is not freedom of speech at all, but merely-narrowly
construed state-regulated speech. And in Europe the courts are perfectly
cool with that:

“The interference with the applicant’s freedoms under
Article 10 of the Convention had therefore been justified. As to the
applicant’s argument that those who participated in the seminar knew of
her critical approach and could not be offended, the Court of Appeal
found that the public seminar had been offered for free to young voters
by the Austrian Freedom Party Education Institute, and at least one
participant had been offended, as her complaints had led to the
applicant being charged.”

That was an anonymous undercover “journalist” – because the media
regard “E S” as a greater threat than the Islamization of Austria.

Rationalizing Our Surrender