A Spanish priest is facing up to three years in prison on “hate crime” charges for his heated words about Islam. Catholic News Agency has the story.
Last month, Father Custodio Ballester and two other individuals received a summons from a provincial court in Spain to answer charges of an alleged “hate crime” for criticising Islamic extremism.
If convicted, Ballester could be forced to pay a fine of more than $1,600 and serve up to three years in prison. The charges date back to 2020, when the Court Prosecutor’s Office in Catalonia accused Ballester of a “hate crime” based on what he wrote in a 2016 article titled ‘The Impossible Dialogue with Islam‘.
Four years later, Ballester is still awaiting trial on criminal charges for criticising the faith that he says aims to “destroy” all those who refuse to recognise Mohammed as “the last and ultimate prophet of God”.
“I know Muslims who were not offended and understood perfectly well that I was not referring to them but to those who live Islam in a violent, radical way,” he told CNA.
Ballester, 59, serves a parish in Barcelona within the archdiocese led by Bishop Juan José Omella. He has long been known for his pro-life activism.
“In Spain, ‘hate crime’ was invented and is directed at any speech that directly or indirectly refers to discrimination, encouragement of hostility, or inducement to violence,” Ballester told CNA. Previously, he pointed out, the criminal code was directed at whether someone had actually done something.
Asked whether he is prepared to spend three years in prison should he be convicted on the hate crime charges, Ballester said: “It doesn’t seem right to be convicted for something I’ve said, but in Spain anything is possible. But if I am convicted, this will no longer be Spain but Pakistan, where you can be killed for blaspheming the Koran or Mohammed.”
“There is no longer any true right to free speech in Spain,” Ballester said.
Worth reading in full.
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This kind of thing already happens in Sweeden where if you criticise mass immigration or if you dare to point out that migrants commit 20 times more sex crimes and rapes than indigenous Swedes you can be arrested and do time. It is ofcourse all part of the “War on the West” which is a book by Douglas Murray ——I recommend 3 other books for all who believe in a free society and who mistakenly thought they were living in one. —-“While Europe Slept” and “Surrender” by Bruce Bawer and “Infidel” by Aayan Hirsi Ali, and also the work this woman does for The American Enterprise Institute in the USA.
Bruce Bawer, yes. Aayan Hirsi Ali, no! She’s an arrogant Globalist Trojan Horse, a Manchurian Candidate, a Fake new “convert” to Christianity in a bid to deceive American voters. Every time she moves to a new western country, she seeks high political office, pretending to represent the Ethnic European citizens of that country, and the murder of Theo van Gogh really launched her career. How odd that she herself, for all her whining about fatwas, has never been harmed by Muslims. Do not trust the fine words of that manipulative Somalian Muslim woman.
Ali no ???——-Ok fair enough but she has exposed Muslim danger to women and how they treat them as property, and that is good enough for me for my purposes.
The FSU should campaign for a British equivalent to the 1st Amendment.
I’m a fan of the 1st Amendment and the original contents of the Bill of Rights as well as the structure of the US governments with the separation of powers. It has become corrupted but I still think it was an excellent attempt.
I see little chance of anything as unequivocal as the Bill of Rights ever being adopted anywhere short of it following a violent revolution against tyranny (as the original was). That might happen in the UK in a few decades or centuries as the gradual decline of our civilisation takes its toll and we become like a Third World country.
In my experience, everyone you ask believes in freedom for speech that they approve of or don’t find offensive, but very few are happy to say that all speech should be allowed – this sadly seems to include the FSU.
The worst thing to have happened is that the masses have accepted that words = violence (or at least that violence is an inevitable consequence of hostile words). In reality, they have been groomed by government so that those in power can force their desired reality onto the rest of us.
Very well put
Thank you.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/immigration-and-the-takeover-of-my-home-town/
The above concerns Nelson in Lancashire. Coming from its next-door neighbour, Burnley the situation described in the article began in the 60s and was the beginning of a marked transformation even back then.
Whilst I have every sympathy for Snr Ballester’s situation of unfair/unjust and unconscionable treatment I would make the following point for the sake of perspective. I have lived in Spain for 23 years, (coastal Valencia Region). Our town has a handful of, (I assume) legal Moroccans, chiefly employed as gardeners and the like. The situation in Burnley 50 years ago and in Nelson now is a million miles away from my experience of Spain.—- It’s just a personal observation, and to think, we moved here because I didn’t like the way Blair’s Britain was shaping up.
Hunt the c-nt !! First words of his bullshit budget ! A Muslim war memorial put forwarded by savage Jabbit , the tw-ts think that will get them brownie points ! It’s two fingers to the indigenous!!!
Haha, yeah I saw that. Hot off the heels of Sushi’s warning about ”extremism”. Yep it’s complete bollocks and reeks of more brown-nosing and appeasement. The Rochdale paedo apologist and terrorist fanboy, Galloway, will be loving that.
It’s beyond pathetic !
“complete bollocks and reeks of more brown-nosing”
Very clever Mogs.
I won’t spell it out for fear of upsetting some gentler souls.
Headteachers and other teaching staff were out protesting in Paris the other day. They’re standing in solidarity with yet another colleague who’s had death threats. They’re sick of living in fear of being labelled ‘Islamophobic’ and of the intimidation from pupils and parents. Good for them, I say. This is happening everywhere;
”On Monday, more than 170 head teachers from high schools and secondary schools in Paris, representing around half of the schools in the capital, gathered in Sorbonne Square. They demonstrated their support for the headmaster of the Lycée Ravel, who had received death threats after asking a pupil to take off her headscarf at school. Nicolas Bray, headmaster of the Fénelon high school and academic secretary of SNPDEN-Unsa Paris, the largest union for education management staff, summed up the mobilisation by telling Le Figaro: “It’s not ‘Je suis Charlie’, but we’re here to make the point that it could happen to any of us.”
On Wednesday the 28th of February, the headmaster of the school in the 20th arrondissement of Paris was threatened with death on social media after he asked a pupil to take off her headscarf.
At the weekend, the unions representing school headmasters in Paris called for solidarity and expressed their concern about the death threats received by some colleagues for applying the principles of secularism. They pointed out how quickly the accusations spread via social networks, putting these professionals at risk. The unions declared that such methods were unacceptable and welcomed the support of the Ministry and the Academy of Paris. Kamel Aït Bouali, headmaster of the Collège Thomas Mann (Paris 13e) and academic secretary of the Sgen-CFDT, told our colleagues: “The trigger is Ravel and the violation of secularism. I have no evidence to confirm that it is a provocation, but we are talking about a BTS student who should have known the rules for a long time.”
Another example of the threat to teachers is the threat posed by social networks, such as at the Lycée Colbert (Paris 10e), which was the focus of media attention after Gabriel Attal banned abayas in the school. The high school had been blockaded and banners unfurled to denounce “state Islamophobia” after a teacher spoke about a student wearing a long dress and the education team decided to talk to her about it. “But it went in all kinds of channels on social media,” says Isabelle Brochard, the school’s headmaster.
Lucie Pitiot, headmistress of the Cité scolaire François Villon, shared her experiences after the Ravel case on social media. “You don’t get up in the morning and think you’re going to receive a death threat. But that’s exactly what happened to me on February 12”, after a pupil was expelled from school and a parent came to her colleagues to tell them that he wanted to “kill her”. Despite receiving support and filing a police report, she said she had not been walking alone on the street for 18 days and only travelled by car.”
https://www.valeursactuelles.com/societe/laicite-la-multiplication-des-menaces-de-mort-envers-le-corps-enseignant-denoncee-par-les-directeurs-detablissements-parisiens
Sounds like Islam itself falls outside this hate speech law?
Vienna again. Female victim of murder again. Afghan migrant again;
”The investigation into the serial abuse, including cell phone videos, of twelve-year-old Anna-Sofia by a 17-member multicultural gang in the hotspot district of Favoriten continues at full speed. The next abuse thriller is already shocking: this time even with a death drama! 14-year-old Sandra (name changed by the editors) from Lower Austria is found lifeless in the apartment of an Afghan on Tuesday morning. Crime scene: Vienna’s neighboring district of Simmering.
Justice granted protection, also under Kickl
According to previous findings, the 26-year-old suspect may have lured the girl into the municipal building with drugs. While the schoolgirl probably ultimately died of an overdose, the young man, who arrived with the wave of refugees in 2015, claims to have had “consensual sex” with her. His asylum application was rejected at first instance, but the judiciary granted subsidiary protection following an appeal. This was then extended for the first time in 2018 under the then FPÖ Interior Minister Herbert Kickl. Then again under ÖVP Interior Minister Karl Nehammer. Also because deportation was then no longer possible. The 26-year-old is now legally in the country with an alien’s passport.
The State Office of Criminal Investigation has now taken over the investigation into the alarming death. The case has frightening parallels to the murder of Leonie. The then 13-year-old schoolgirl was also drugged and left to die leaning against a tree after being abused in a group by three Afghans.
Meanwhile, there will be a political summit on Thursday with Constitutional Minister Edtstadler and Interior Minister Karner on lowering the age of criminal responsibility. Minors under 14 currently receive therapy and social workers instead of a prison sentence. Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer, himself the father of a daughter the age of Anna-Sofia – all 17 suspected rapists are on the loose – had denounced the “defenselessness of the constitutional state”. And demanded via “Krone”: “We have to talk about punishments.”
https://www.krone.at/3281235
This is the case of ‘Anna-Sofia’, referred to in the above article. All but one of her attackers have since been freed. Very similar to what we’re aware happened in the UK with the Pakistani rape gangs;
”Seventeen young people between the ages of 13 and 18 were arrested in Austria on Thursday accused of conducting a harrowing long-term ordeal of sexual abuse against a 12-year-old girl.
Police in Vienna seized the suspected male rape gang after the victim filed a complaint claiming to have been forced by her boyfriend to have sex with his friends before being passed around “like a trophy” for over a year.
Authorities from the Vienna State Criminal Police Office conducted a mass operation on Thursday morning, arresting multiple suspects and storming dozens of apartments. Four cell phones were also seized in connection with the allegations.
According to Kronen-Zeitung, the victim’s boyfriend is accused of coercing the girl into having underage sex with him and forcing her to engage in non-consensual sexual intercourse with a number of his friends.
The gang allegedly took multiple videos of the attacks which took place over a sustained period in various locations, including a parking garage, an apartment, and a communal stairwell.
According to the Austrian newspaper, the victim can be heard repeatedly shouting “Stop!” in the footage saved on the seized cell phones as she is raped by multiple perpetrators. She was subsequently blackmailed with the existence of the footage to remain silent with her tormentors vowing to spread it to her family and friends if she contacted the authorities.”
https://www.rmx.news/crime/austria-17-migrant-minors-arrested-for-year-long-gang-rape-of-vienna-schoolgirl/
We are now at the stage, in my view, where state officials have to be deemed complicit in these offences. They have had enough warnings, enough time to act on the “lessons learned” and still this paedophile violence continues. Certain high-ranking officials should be made to carry the can.
Enough is enough.
I wonder if you’d get the same for criticising the wokely C of E? I doubt it. You’d be cheered on and possibly appear on a talk show. So, you can’t criticise any other main religions for their dogmatic, intolerant, fanatical, racist, genocidal positions but you can give the C of E and its loyal adherents, mainly promoting love, tolerance and peace (but also a lot of woke nonsense) a good kicking. Clown world.