In fall 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that insulting Muhammad was not “free speech.” The ruling involved the free speech case of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff (ESW), who had been fined and given a jail sentence in Austria for calling Muhammad a pedophile.
The ECHR “noted that the Austrian courts had held that ES was making value judgments partly based on untrue facts and without regard to the historical context.” Except that Muhammad’s example is still alive and well today, as seen in the prevalence of child marriages in the Islamic world.
The ECHR decision against ESW proved that the court was more committed to the appeasement of Islam than to genuine human rights standards. The fact that Sharia involves such gross violations of human rights showed in her case, as the court succumbed to Sharia blasphemy laws. This raised the question of how much lower the ECHR was willing to go now that it had submitted to Sharia in this precedent-setting decision.
But now, in another groundbreaking decision, the EU Court of Appeal has handed down another decision that can and should set a precedent. This time, it has ruled in favor of a Muslim woman who was appealing to Greek laws against the Sharia, stemming from a case in which Greece applied Sharia in an inheritance matter.
Prior to his death in 2008, Mustafa Molla Sali drew up a will with a Greek notary, in accordance with the country’s civil law, leaving his substantial estate to his wife, including the couple’s apartments and profits from his textile business. Molla Sali’s sisters were left out of the will and contested it, arguing in Greek court that because their late brother was Muslim, his inheritance should be adjudicated in an Islamic court. Under Islamic law, the sisters would receive three-fourths of the estate.
The court ruled in favor of Western law to protect Chatitze Molla Sali’s interest…
The case has been widely watched by legal scholars, as it is one of the first instances of an international legal body ruling on the legality of multiple legal systems operating in the same country. It’s also garnered much attention in Greece, where the parliament passed a law limiting the power of Islamic courts in 2018, including a guarantee that Muslims can have their disputes settled before a Greek civil court.
Not only should Muslims in non-Muslim countries have their disputes settled in non-Muslim civil courts if they choose to do so, but there should also be no Sharia arbitration in any Western country. Equal rights for women are enshrined in Western law; there should be no exceptions.
Sharia tenets and principles have no place whatsoever in Western democracies. Complacency and appeasement are destroying the foundation of Western society.
“Rights Court Orders Greece to Pay Widow in Sharia Law Case,” Courthouse News, June 18, 2020:
STRASBOURG, France (CN) — Chatitze Molla Sali already knew that she’d won the right to inherit her Muslim husband’s full estate two years ago but she had to wait until Thursday to find out just how much the Greek government would have to pay her for illegally denying it to her.
The 13-judge panel at the European Court of Human Rights held that Greece owes the widow more than 50,000 euros ($56,000) for siding with her late husband’s two sisters and for applying “Sharia law to a section of its citizens against their wishes.”
Prior to his death in 2008, Mustafa Molla Sali drew up a will with a Greek notary, in accordance with the country’s civil law, leaving his substantial estate to his wife, including the couple’s apartments and profits from his textile business.
Molla Sali’s sisters were left out of the will and contested it, arguing in Greek court that because their late brother was Muslim, his inheritance should be adjudicated in an Islamic court. Under Islamic law, the sisters would receive three-fourths of the estate.
A lower court sided with the widow, but on appeal Greece’s top court ruled the will was invalid based on 200-year-old treaties between Greece and Turkey.
The high court found that Greek Muslims, a group of around 100,000 who mostly live along the border with Turkey, were governed by the Treaty of Sevres, signed in 1920, and the Treaty of Lausanne, signed in 1923. Both were signed following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, when Turkey wanted to guarantee the rights of Muslim citizens living on what became the Greek side of the border.
The Greek Supreme Court ordered the dispute to be settled by a mufti, an Islamic jurist.
“Her husband decided the way he wanted his inheritance to be passed on. The Greek court should have respected his desire,” Molla Sali’s lawyer, Yannis Ktistakis, told the Associated Press in 2018….