ECHR: Model for Algeria’s Repression of Free Speech

A 2018 decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upholding the conviction of an Austrian citizen, Elisabeth Sabaditch Wolff, by a Vienna court for "disparaging religious doctrines" has been used by Algeria to defend the sentencing a scholar to three years in prison for "denigrating the dogma and the precepts of Islam." Regrettably, it appears that the European Court of Human Rights now provides a model, not for the protection of fundamental, inherent rights, but for how they can be infringed upon by regimes seeking to shut down factual debates at the behest of religious authorities.

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