The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has found that a criminal conviction for comments made regarding the Prophet Muhammad did not breach freedom of expression.
The applicant held a number of seminars in Austria in which she likened the Prophet Muhammad’s marriage to a six-year-old girl to paedophilia. The woman was charged with disparaging a religious doctrine. The Regional Court in Vienna found a difference between child marriage and paedophilia, and that the applicant’s statement ‘were not factual but offensive value judgments’.
The ECtHR accepted that the Criminal Code in Austria provided had a legitimate aim of preventing disorder by safeguarding religious peace and protecting religious feelings. The Court emphasised the essential foundation of freedom of expression and noted that religions could not expect to be exempt from criticism. However, the Court stated that where “such expressions go beyond the limits of a critical denial of other people’s religious beliefs and are likely to incite religious intolerance”, the protection of Article 10 of the Convention on Human Rights was lost.
The Court found there to be a wide margin of appreciation where expression is liable to offend personal convictions and the domestic authorities were best placed to evaluate what was likely to disturb religious peace in their country. It therefore concluded that the national courts had balanced the rights of the applicant to freedom of expression and the “rights of others to have their religious feelings protected.” The ECtHR held that the national courts were justified in their interference with the applicant’s right to freedom of expression and that there had been no breach of Article 10 of the Convention.
Click here for the decision in E.S v Austria.