Austrian politician fined 24,000 Euros and gets a conditional sentence for criticising Mohammed

Criticizing Mohammed has its price

Austrian politician given a 24,000 euro fine and conditional imprisonment

In what appeared to be an act of deference toward Islamic legal teaching regarding blasphemy against Mohammed, an Austrian court sentenced Susanne Winter, a National Councillor from Graz, to a fine of 24,000 euros as well as three months’ conditional imprisonment.

The court in Graz which sentenced her gave “incitement” and the “denigration of religious teachings” as the reasons for the unusually severe punishment. The politician, a member of the Freedom Party, had stated that Mohammed, one of whose wives was only six years of age, “would be considered a paedophile from a modern legal standpoint”. She also claimed that his verses from the Koran were partly the products of epileptic seizures.

Susanne Winter defended herself by saying that she had only referred to historical facts and, in fact, had actually defended Austrian law, which considers paedophilia a criminal offence. The judge, however, was of the opinion that the National Councillor had superseded the “limits of an individual’s fundamental legal rights”. Since her sentencing, people in Austria have been increasingly referring to a “scandalous decision” and a “muzzle” against any critical remarks against Islam.

Islamist threats

An Islamist video with threats against Susanne Winter has now appeared over the internet. Accusations of slandering the Prophet as well as of blasphemy as such have been misused time and again as a means of justifying violence against Christians and Jews. Whether we go back to 1396, when Christians in Jerusalem were massacred, or to the end of the 18th century, when Jews met the same fate in Tripoli in Libya: The “tongues of the slanderers” were nailed to the doors of churches and synagogues! Apart from a desire to liberate Christian slaves, the latter event, by the way, constituted one of the motives leading to the first US military intervention in Tripoli, Libya, lasting from 1801 to 1805.

Christian Solidarity International (CSI)