A Spanish court has grudgingly affirmed the right to critique Islam, clearing a Catholic priest who faced a three-year prison sentence for alleged “Islamophobic” remarks made on television and in an article about Islamist persecution of Christians.
In countries where Muslims hold power, Christians are brutally persecuted and murdered. What dialogue are we talking about, then?
On October 17, the Málaga Provincial Court acquitted Fr. Custodio Ballester Bielsa of incitement to hatred along with Fr. Fabio Jesús María Calvo Pérez and journalist José Armando Robles Valenzuela, who were also accused of anti-Islamic “hate speech.”
“Hating is not a crime, nor is publishing or being proud of that message, no matter how despicable it may be,” the court ruled. It clarified that even “intolerant speech” is “protected by freedom of expression, even though it may be offensive not only to the group or person to whom it is directed, but even to the person listening to it.”
While the remarks made by Ballester are “unfortunate, Manichean, linked to intransigent religious or ideological stereotypes, or resorting to unfair and arbitrary generalizations, they cannot be considered to constitute the crime of incitement to hatred,” the bench declared.
Dismissing Calvo’s statements as, in large part, “delusional,” the judges explained that the priest’s condition was “verifiable as a product of the delusional ideas and psychological ailments suffered.” Calvo believes his statements are normal due to his condition and practically ratified these “delusional” statements during the trial, the court noted.
Islamist Convert from Catholicism Complains Against Priests
Based on a complaint from the Spanish campaign group Muslims Against Islamophobia (MCI), the public prosecutor had charged the priests with attacking Islam and Muslims and demanded the maximum sentence of three years in prison and a 10-month fine with a daily rate of 10 euros. If found guilty, the priests also faced an eight-year ban from preaching.
The prosecutor’s office also sought a four-year prison sentence for Robles, the director of the digital media Alerta Digital TV.
The Spanish media portal Periodista Digital reported that MCI and its coordinator, Ibrahim Miguel Ángel Pérez, a convert from Catholicism to Islam, served as the “judicial battering ram” who brought the case against the priests and the journalist. As per OK Diario, the MCI publicly stated that its goal is to “imprison those who profess hate speech” against Muslims.
Ibrahim Pérez has “publicly defended Sharia law, celebrated the arrival of the Taliban in Kabul, insulted Catholics by calling them ‘pedophiles’ and ‘mentally retarded,’ and gloats on social media by proclaiming that there are now more practicing Muslims than Catholics in Catalonia,” the author of the article, Carlos Aurelio, a retired professor, wrote.
Aurelio noted that the MCI had sued him a decade ago for an essay in which he addressed, “with historical rigor, the conquest of Granada by the Catholic monarchs, the Battle of Lepanto, the expulsion of the Moriscos [Iberian Muslims who voluntarily or forcibly converted to Christianity], and the constant Islamic nostalgia for the recovery of Al-Andalus.”
“You have tolerated the abuses of a corrupt Church, and now you are all [f-----g] mentally retarded,” Ibrahim Pérez is reported to have posted on his X account.
MCI also includes Moroccan-born lawyer Zoubida Barik Edidi, who wore a hijab during an Islamist terrorist trial in 2009 despite being ordered by the President of the Court to wear headgear appropriate to the court. Edidi challenged the order in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which ruled against her, declaring that “no Fundamental Right has been violated.”
Priest Defends Remarks Against Islamism
In court, Ballester explained that his remarks targeted “radical jihadism” rather than all Muslims in general. “They’re (MCI) the same people who support the Taliban and have said that the Catholic religion is ‘shit.’ I’ve never said that about Islam,” he insisted.
“I didn’t speak about individual Muslims, but rather about the threat of radical Islam, and that is the absolute truth,” Ballester told InfoVaticana. “I’ve criticized the criticizable aspects of Islam, but I’ve also praised its positive aspects,” he told El Debate a day before the trial.
This ruling concludes a judicial process that dragged on for almost a decade and had turned Ballester into a symbol of resistance against Islamist and Leftist efforts to curb freedom of expression and discourse criticizing Islam.
In December 2016, Ballester penned an article titled “The Impossible Dialogue with Islam” in response to Archbishop Juan José Omella of Barcelona’s essay “The Necessary Dialogue with Islam,” Focus on Western Islamism reported.
“In countries where Muslims hold power, Christians are brutally persecuted and murdered. What dialogue are we talking about, then?” Ballester asked in the article. “Islam does not allow for dialogue. You either believe or you are an infidel who must be subdued one way or another.”
In February 2017, Ballester told a panel discussion on the program La Ratonera (The Mousetrap) on Alerta Digital TV that “radical Islam does indeed intend to destroy Europe and thus annihilate the West,” the priest recounted in an interview with Zenit (France).
Calvo, meanwhile, is alleged to have labeled Muslims as “the Trojan horse that infects, erodes, and degenerates the European race” and “a serious threat to the Christian continent and its traditional values.”
Ballester’s ordeal continues as the verdict may still be appealed before the High Court of Andalusia.
