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The Perilous Erosion of Free Speech in Europe and Beyond
American Thinker ^ | 10 Oct, 2025 | Amil Imani

Posted on 10/10/2025 4:22:36 AM PDT by MtnClimber

Those Americans who insist that ‘it can’t happen here’ need to understand that it already is happening here.

In an era where truth is increasingly subordinated to comfort, my colleague and a close friend, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff (an intrepid Austrian counter-jihad activist and human rights and free speech advocate), stands as a beacon of unyielding courage.

Sabaditsch-Wolff has endured personal persecution for daring to voice historical facts that challenge prevailing sensitivities. Her October 2025 speech in Dallas, Texas, delivered amid global tensions over censorship and cultural shifts, serves as a stark warning: Free speech is not merely a right, but the cornerstone of liberty, and its erosion threatens Western democracies. Drawing from her own trial and the broader patterns of suppression across Europe and beyond, her message resonates profoundly in 2025 — a year marked by political upheavals, including the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.

Sabaditsch-Wolff’s journey began in the heart of Europe, a continent once synonymous with Enlightenment ideals. In 2009, during seminars on Islam’s influence in Europe, she referenced Islamic sources detailing Muhammad’s marriage to a six-year-old girl (Aisha), consummated at nine, and posed a rhetorical question about its implications. This was no inflammatory rant, but a factual discourse rooted in historical texts. Yet a journalist secretly recorded her, leading to charges of “denigration of religious doctrines” under Austrian law. Convicted despite appeals reaching the European Court of Human Rights, she faced a chilling verdict: Her speech must be “balanced” against the right of others not to be offended. As she recounts, truth became irrelevant; tone and potential disturbance to “religious peace” took precedence.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: censorship; concerntrolling; itsnogulagbut

1 posted on 10/10/2025 4:22:36 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

The leftists in the USA are getting their ideas from Europe. I expect leftist judges to start using European decisions as precedent.


2 posted on 10/10/2025 4:23:10 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber
Ruth Bader Ginsburg on International Law

"Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court delivered an address to The American Society of International Law earlier this month, and it shows just how she, and some of her colleagues, are now willing to use selected foreign court decisions and laws in determining deciding issues of constitutional interpretation in the U.S. She said, “Before taking up the diversity of opinions on this matter, I will state and endeavor to explain my view, which is simply this: If U. S. experience and decisions can be instructive to systems that have more recently instituted or invigorated judicial review for constitutionality, so we can learn from others now engaged in measuring ordinary laws and executive actions against charters securing basic rights.” "

(snip)

3 posted on 10/10/2025 4:38:20 AM PDT by Tench_Coxe (The woke were surprised by the reaction to the Bud Light fiasco. May there be many more surprises)
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To: MtnClimber

.


4 posted on 10/10/2025 6:10:09 AM PDT by sauropod
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To: Tench_Coxe

Thanks for posting her WORDS.


5 posted on 10/10/2025 6:12:06 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: Tench_Coxe

Great information at the link. BUMP


6 posted on 10/10/2025 6:16:53 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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