The Grand Chamber of the ECtHR Refuses to Hear ESW’s Appeal

Back in January Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff filed an appeal of her “hate speech” conviction with the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The Grand Chamber has now refused to hear her appeal (the announcement of the decision comprises one line in this press item from the Court).

This was the last avenue of appeal open to her — her conviction had been upheld by the Austrian Supreme Court, and then (after five long years) the ECtHR. There is no higher judicial authority to which she can appeal; her case is now officially closed.

As you can imagine, Elisabeth was hit hard by the news. Here’s the note she sent out to the supporters who helped her pay the (very expensive) legal costs of the appeal:

I am sorry. I did all I could.

Since the current Austrian government is disinterested in doing anything about this tragedy, I am herewith ceasing my work in Austria. I grateful to everyone who supported me in the past decade.

Thanks to the a new project called “Encounter Truth” I will now spread the truth to the American people, at least, to those who still believe in Free Speech, in the First Amendment. There is much work to be done: we all know how much the First Amendment, how much free speech is currently under attack in the United States.

My lawyer’s words:

I do not need to stress that I consider this decision to be completely wrong and a serious blow to freedom of expression.

Please pray for Austria, for Europe.

Henrik Clausen, who has worked with Elisabeth and the OSCE team for many years, had this to say about European “justice”:

Elisabeth lost her appeal to the European Court of Human Wrongs — ehm, Rights. The Grand Chamber summarily dismissed the appeal. €45,000 in legal expenses and much hope lost, with the stroke of a pen.

She is of course deeply disappointed by the outcome. This means that the verdict from October stands unchallenged, with no further route for appeal. Thus, the European Court of Human Rights has introduced a “Right not to have religious feelings hurt”, which is as important as Freedom of Expression, if not more.

One has to wonder what kind of imbeciles are now taking care of the highest human rights authority in Europe?

For Elisabeth, this marks the end of her work in Europe. She has good connections and major plans to work in the United States, and is heading for Texas later this week.

Another reason for her chance of focus is that the CSPI [Center for the Study of Political Islam] people have won the battle for influence with the Austrian politicians. They have convinced the Austrian politicians that “Political Islam” is the problem, not Islam as such. From a legal perspective, this will lead to a law against “Political Islam”, while the law on Islam as such (which Elisabeth and Christian Zeitz have struggled to get fixed) will remain unchanged.

A third reason for her ceasing all work in Austria is that her contacts in government let her down when it came to her case at the European Court of Human Rights. When she asked for a public statement of support, FPÖ simply responded: “No. We do not want to offend our coalition partner [ÖVP] with a freedom of expression problem.”

We also discussed our participation at OSCE. We’ve been there for ten years now, hopefully getting to the hearts and minds of people present there, inspiring them to do the Right Thing. We probably caused severe harm to the organisation as such, by using it for its intended purpose, thereby disturbing the leftist imbeciles now in charge of what used to be a very fine legacy. Our guess is that the usefulness of going there is spent, but we’ll not make a final decision just yet.

Things are changing rapidly. The political madness, which we believed could be cured with rationality and reason, seems to survive just about any attack we have thrown at it. In fact, the madness seems to grow ever more pervasive, despite the efforts of good people left and right.

My take: This will get pretty chaotic. So-called “extremist forces” will come into play, now that the moderate ones have been systematically ignored, harassed and persecuted for a decade. Prayer and meditation make sense. Struggling to inspire brave, rational behaviour among the press and politicians no longer does.

For previous posts on the “hate speech” prosecution of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, see Elisabeth’s Voice: The Archives.

24 thoughts on “The Grand Chamber of the ECtHR Refuses to Hear ESW’s Appeal

  1. I’m not surprised.

    Mark Steyn’s book _America Alone_, pretty much says it as it is.

    We see the recent censorship attempts in New Zealand, also.

    It’s not a good scene, overall. She is right that the USA is the most important, at this point.

  2. This is not just a personal defeat for ESW, but a tragic setback for Europe in the longer term.

    I am very happy to hear she will be focusing on free speech work in the U.S. We need help to stop the aggrieved immaturity of the perpetually offended.

  3. This is bad news and a terrible precedent. Makes one wonder who these people actually are at the helm of making such decisions. Short of assuming plain corruption, the only plausible explanation remaining is that they themselves already fear for their lives if they permit criticism of Islam. At any rate, they are clearly no longer committed to the principles they are supposed to stand for.

    • Technically, they just ruled that it’s within a national purview, and not a European Human Rights issue.

      On another day, I’d be happy to see them NOT want to mix in to “local” issues, but in this case, we know fully well what their ruling *really* means.

      These “courts” are filled with politicians by another name, I’m sure. Just less obviously so than here, where retired politicians end up on the bench as their next “gig” quite openly.

  4. This is not surprising. ECHR will always defend any rights of islamic belief system, because human rights is part of humanitarian ideology (or religion) which is basically antichristian. There was not even a chance.

    • Exactly. After recent events in Australia, where the Human Rights Commissioner lamented being unable to stop us saying whatever we wanted at our kitchen tables, I mistrust any official body with ‘human rights’ in its title. And if you put ‘human rights’ and ‘EU’ together, you can only expect it to be worse.

  5. The net intended effect of the European court decision to reject ESW’s appeal is that the right of Muslims not to have their religious feelings hurt trumps free speech rights. This no one will comment even obliquely on anything Islamic in Europe, ever again. This was intended as the court would not be unaware of this obvious effect. Moreover, within Islam religion touches everything, so any commentary on any political or cultural or policy preference or anything literally in a Muslim community could be construed as hurtful to ‘religious feelings.’ Thus all commentary on Islam will be chilled to utter silence. This is what the authorities want.

    We can fight it but the next steps down in the sovietization of Europe and the West will start including repression, imprisonment, selected administrative (covert) killings and beyond. How far behind can internment camps be?

    I find I’m intellectually withdrawing now. Brexit is done for. It’ll be 100,000+ crossing the US southern border every month starting this or next month. A million+ new illegals in the US in 2019 alone.

    Look for leftist elites to just start nakedly rigging elections everywhere. Look for martial law in Britain & France this year, in the US in 2020 in the run-up to the election.

    It’s disappointing too how silent & defeatist the Leave camp in Britain have been, i.e. Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg, etc. It’s like Brexit has been beaten. Trump has said nothing about the border in 2 or 3 weeks despite a record number of new illegals arriving in February (70,000+). It’s like that fight too has been lost.

    It’s Springtime for democratic socialism, Springtime for Liberal Fascism. Springtime for Hitler. This is what 50%+ of the West wants, apparently. When people can’t resolve differences with words they’ll do it with whatever weapons come to hand. Censorship is a leading indicator of imminent war.

    I’ve lost hope that we can avoid war.

    • I think that you’re pretty much right, BUT remember that there are huge geographical swaths of the United States that are in line with our thinking. And Eastern Europe. But some areas are beyond hope, such as the one that I live in. I feel that the lefties are close to becoming violent in their attempts at suppression of ideas that they don’t like. They’re gradualists, as is everything in the West, generally, but they’re taking us to a place that Mao would have been proud of.

      Look at the brainwashing of kids with “climate strikes” and so on, also. If they were so worried about the future of the world, they’d be organising about “migration” and North Korean + Iranian nukes in the same way. But they’re not…

    • Stephen- I am so very sorry to say that I have to agree with your post. The biggest factors that can prevent President Trump from getting re-elected are:

      1. Voter fraud via illegal and even legal immigration. The Demon Rats (Democrats) have declared open borders and there seems to be no will to stop them. Probably 99% of these immigrant invaders will be voting for the D’s.

      2. Media Madness- over 95% of Trump’s daily 24/7/365 press coverage is negative. Considering that more than half of the legal voters believe everything they see and hear on the MSM, you can figure they will be voting for the D’s.

      3. Google, Big Tech and the Masters of the Universe- that would be Hate Book, Twitter and Big G. They are already censoring anyone that is conservative, right wing, Republican, pro-Trump, pro Second Amendment, pro Free Speech, etc. etc. and Google search is completely biased to the Commie/ Fascist Left.

      It’s been estimated that even in the last election 25% of the vote was secretly influenced by Big Tech algorithms.

      As far as Brexit- it’s gotten so convoluted that I don’t even pretend to understand what the hell is going on over there. It does seem like they’ve got the same bunch of crooks that we have to deal with. Too bad that they don’t have a First Amendment to “guarantee” free speech.

  6. Dear Elisabeth,
    I’m very sorry to hear this outcome. And thank you for fighting it through as hard as you did. You are right: you did all you could. And your backers funded a good cause by enabling you to go down telling the fighting truth. I hope you have great success in Texas and in across America. Kind regards,
    Gavin Boby

    • +1

      One thing that is increasingly clear to me is that salvation will NOT come from court actions. Salvation may come from elections or from sortation (i.e., people self-segregating into areas), or by other means, but truth & fairness are only occasional incidents to legal process.

    • Well said, Mr Boby–all kind (and grateful) thoughts to Elisabeth from me as well.

  7. This is disheartening news. It must be a massive disappointment to ESW to see her long battle for freedom of speech come to naught. But I should say “apparently come to naught” for I can see that this final decision by the ECtHR will help delineate the future battlelines for the Counterjihad.

    We now know clearly where we stand and what the state of so-called human rights is in Europe today. There is no longer any doubt that the powers-that-be have a warped understanding of what a “human right” is. Nor is there any doubt that the law, such as it is, is applied discriminatorily. This case has emphasized that the human rights of one group are to be diminished and circumscribed, while those of another, more favoured group are to be enlarged and embellished.

    I’m glad to hear of Elisabeth’s new venture in the United States and I wish her all the best.

  8. Could someone explain further the reference here by Henrik Clausen to CSPI? I take it that would be the work of Bill Warner on political Islam. I’ve always seen that as a positive undertaking but it seems there’s another side here—an aspect that I’ve never previously considered.

    • Yes, this does deserve some elaboration. CSPI is the Bill Warner organization, and I’ve done some translation / layout work on these books. They are excellent. They document, based on Islamic scripture, that Islam is inherently political, and cannot be anything else. Furthermore, the political system that is Islam is totalitarian and intolerant of other ideas. By way of Islamic scripture, not someone’s opinion.

      Enter the politician. Let me first define ‘political’:

      “Done or acting in the interests of status or power within an organization rather than as a matter of principle.”

      So when a politician hears about ‘Political Islam’, as opposed to Islam as such, his instinct is to go: “Great! It’s only ‘political Islam’ that constitutes a problem, not Islam as such. Let’t make a law prohibiting ‘political Islam’, and I don’t have to be brave enough to confront Islam as such.”

      One should never assume that a politician personally understands the topics he deals with. Politicians base themselves on analysis done by others – mostly State analysis – and is more interested in winning the next election than in doing the Right Thing.

      ‘Political Islam’ thus let’s him pretend to deal with the problem without even having understood its nature, and look good towards journalists and other agents of the State.

      Lots of people have understood the nature of Islam, in great part due to the excellent Bill Warner books. But the cowards we have elected into parliament are usually not interested in personally understanding what they are dealing with – in particular not if that understanding should prove to be politically incorrect.

      It’s a mess, and a loss of rationality in dealing with things public. “Retreat of Reason” is a pretty apt expression of what we’re experiencing.

      • Thanks for this explanation, Henrik. It’s unfortunate that the work of Dr. Bill Warner, which warns the West of the dangers of Political Islam, can be so misconstrued. As you say, politicians aren’t known for their deep understanding of issues, especially not the issue of Islam, which requires study and observation in order to fully comprehend the threat it poses.

        I’ve tried to think this through and it seems to me that Austrian politicians must see Political Islam as that part of Islam that interacts with and pressures governments and ruling authorities to enact laws favourable to Islam. Or, they could also see it as that part of Islam that pushes incessantly to achieve dominance for the religion.

        Another way they might look at it is to see Political Islam as a type of Islam, and that there are other non-political types, about which they need have no concern. So, in their minds if they deal with either conceptualization of Political Islam, they’ve solved the problem.

        But in actuality, and I’m sure that Bill Warner knows this well, this distinction is a moot point, for there is no Islam other than Political Islam. There is no way to extricate the cultural aspects, the religious rites, the teachings, or the practices from the greater whole. It is all one unit.

        I’ve read some of the work of the anthropologist, Philip Carl Salzman, and he explains well how Islam has suffused the cultures of the Middle East (and now other areas where it is dominant) so that there is no way to separate the religion from the culture. It’s concepts like these that the politicians of Austria need to understand. But, as you say, they have no understanding at all.

        Thanks again for your reply. I understand better now how Bill Warner’s work has had unfortunate consequences in Austria.

  9. Thankyou for doing all you have done so far Elizabeth
    Remember Solzhenitsyn who said that the Soviet state could not have won if all its victims had put up a fight.
    You have been, and will continue to be a very important part of the fight against the current madness.

    • A good reminder. We all would do well to read Solzhenitsyn on a regular basis.

      Amazon tells me I got this one in February 2018. I had to put it aside due to my failing eyesight. Now that I’ve had my right eye done, I have only to wait until April to finish my left eye and I’ll be able to read it.

      The Gulag Archipelago Abridged: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (P.S.)
      https://amzn.to/2U0V567

    • Remember Solzhenitsyn who said that the Soviet state could not have won if all its victims had put up a fight.

      Thank you as well. My regular quote from The Gulag Archipelago:

      And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.

      — Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

      This momentary respite from America’s headlong rush into its own Gulag Garland™ may well become the stuff of lore. It’s dreadful to think how little separates us (aside from the Second Amendment, that is) from our own doors getting knocks at three o’clock.

      • The time to take up arms is upon us. We have been infiltrated and are all behind enemy lines. There is no other way but to drive them into the ground. If even one remains alive, the cancer of Islam will not perish.

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