(Spectator) In a monumental irony, the ECHR’s agreement with an Austrian court that offensive comments about the Prophet Mohammed were “beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate” has handed a big victory to both Islamists and Islamophobes — while infantilising believing Muslims everywhere.
The case concerns an unnamed Austrian woman who held a number of seminars during which she portrayed the prophet as a paedophile. After she was convicted by an Austrian court of “disparaging religion” (and fined nearly €500), she appealed to the ECHR claiming the punishment breached her right to free expression. The court disagreed.
As a practising Muslim, I find this notion — that the prophet was a paedophile — to be as abhorrent and nasty as they come; not to mention completely false. Yet I could not disagree more with the ECHR’s ruling.
