Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Fighting Errors in the Modern World => Topic started by: Thursday on February 22, 2012, 09:13:48 PM
-
From Traditio
http://www.traditio.com/comment/com1202.htm
Benedict-Ratzinger tried to quash him and failed. Bernie Fellay tried to quash him and failed. Anti-Catholic secularist radicals tried to quash him and failed. Finally, after three years, in an Ash Wednesday (February 22, 2012) decision, a German Appeals Court has quashed the conviction of the Neo-SSPX's senior bishop, Richard Williamson, for expressing his opinion on a disputed matter of secular history. The Appeals Court in Nuremberg ruled that there were "irremediable procedural problems" and vacated the decision against Williamson, at the same time rescinding the 8,600-dollar fine previously imposed.
Here is a French source
http://fr.euronews.net/depeches/1402604-negationnisme-la-condamnation-de-leveque-williamson-annulee-en-allemagne/
-
Such great news! A truly heroic Bishop! :applause:
-
Unexpected Great News.
Our prayers for Bishop Williamson have been answered.
-
Fantastic news indeed
Bishop Williamson wins appeal against conviction in Germany
http://jailingopinions.com/blog/
On Ash Wednesday, 22nd February 2012, the courageous British Bishop Richard Williamson won the latest round in the struggle for free source-critical opinion in Europe, when the German appeal court quashed his conviction for “h0Ɩ0cαųst denial”.
Bishop Williamson had been under tremendous pressure from within his church, including the leadership of his traditional Catholic Society of St Pius X (SSPX), to abandon his defence and meekly accept criminalisation, following a prosecution which originated in an interview he gave to a Swedish television journalist in November 2008.
Fifty-five minutes into this interview, which had focused on religious matters as the Bishop had expected, the journalist suddenly sprang the question: “Bishop Williamson, are these your words?” and quoted comments made by the Bishop several years earlier in Canada
Bishop Williamson had then stated that – on the basis of the historical evidence as he understood it – he did not believe there had been any homicidal gas chambers in Third Reich Germany. When unexpectedly pursued by the Swedish interviewer, he defended these views, saying:
“I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against, is hugely against six million Jєωs having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler.”
The interview was broadcast in January 2009 and became widely available on the internet. International Jєωιѕн organisations orchestrated an outcry, leading to pressure on the Roman Catholic Church from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.
It is of course legal to hold such views or make Bishop Williamson’s comments in Canada, or in Sweden, or in the United Kingdom – but in Germany so-called “h0Ɩ0cαųst denial” is punishable by up to five years in prison. Indeed in March 2009 the German lawyer Horst Mahler received the maximum five year prison sentence for such offences, as did the German-Canadian artist and publisher Ernst Zündel in 2007 after being expelled from Canada under an unconstitutional “national security certificate”. German lawyer Sylvia Stoltz was sentenced to three and a half years in prison in 2008, and banned from practising her profession.
A criminal investigation of Bishop Williamson was launched by the German authorities within weeks of the broadcast, and in October 2009 he was fined €12,000 under the German system of “order of punishment”, which initially involves no trial but is sometimes accepted by defendants in straightforward cases, such as traffic offences and the like.
The Bishop’s initial lawyer Matthias Lossmann had been appointed via the SSPX, and pursued a defeatist strategy which led to his client being convicted following a trial in Regensburg in April 2010, though the fine was reduced to €10,000.
A first appeal was heard in July 2011, again in Regensburg, by which time Bishop Williamson had taken on new lawyers – first Wolfram Nahrath, and later Prof. Edgar Weiler, who represented him at the appeal hearing which I attended.
The outcome of this appeal was to reduce the fine again to €6,500, but the legal arguments introduced by Prof. Weiler have now resulted in the complete throwing out of the charges.
A reading of the docuмents suggests that Prof. Weiler was successful in challenging the very basis of the charges – namely the essential question of at what point Bishop Williamson had committed an offence. Was it illegal simply to make these statements in Germany, even behind closed doors, to the Swedish journalist? Surely this was not a “publication”.
Were the prosecutors arguing that Bishop Williamson had intended the comments to be broadcast in Germany, bearing in mind that he was speaking to a Swedish journalist for a Swedish programme? Or that he had not done enough to prevent that publication? If so, in what sense? The broadcast clearly shows Bishop Williamson warning the journalist that such comments are illegal in Germany and that they should not be published there.
The higher court has now agreed that the prosecutors’ charges against Bishop Williamson failed to make these matters clear, and that his conviction should therefore be thrown out.
For the time being, the prosecutors are putting a brave face on their defeat, insisting that they intend to bring new, more precisely stated charges. But by doing so they risk drawing further attention to the dangerous ambiguity of a German legal system which operates by very different standards of free expression from many of its European partners.
Such contradictions led of course to the historic victory in the London courts in 2008, when a European Arrest Warrant against the Australian academic Dr Fredrick Toben, drawn up by German prosecutors was similarly thrown out for reflecting the very vagueness of the law it is based upon, which fails to define terms such as “h0Ɩ0cαųst” or its unique alleged mass murder weapon. On that occasion too, the German authorities and their partners in the Crown Prosecution Service insisted that they would appeal and continue to seek Dr Toben’s extradition, but they quickly abandoned their flimsy case.
The interests of truth and justice – not to mention the interests of the hard-pressed German taxpayer – would be well served if the prosecutors again accepted defeat in Bishop Williamson’s case.
Further updates will appear here when a full translation of today’s docuмents has been made
-
This is good... but this article says that he may face the a new trial for the same allegations.... :surprised:
From: The Local- Germany's News in English (http://www.thelocal.de/society/20120223-40913.html):
A German court on Wednesday quashed a British bishop's high-profile conviction for h0Ɩ0cαųst denial for procedural reasons but said he may face a new trial on the same allegations.
and...
"The prosecutor now has the possibility of pressing charges on the basis of the same facts of the case," the court said in a statement.
A spokesman for prosecutors told news agency AFP that they indeed intended to file new charges "as quickly as possible," adding this could happen in around five weeks.
The renegade bishop, 71, told Swedish television in 2008 that "200,000 to 300,000 Jєωs perished in nαzι cσncєnтrαтισn cαмρs" and disputed the existence of the gas chambers.
-
http://www.thelocal.de/national/20120223-40933.html
h0Ɩ0cαųst denial ‘pub talk’ legal – sometimes
Published: 23 Feb 12 15:28 CET
Germany’s Constitutional Court has ruled in favour of a nαzι who denied the h0Ɩ0cαųst in his neighbourhood pub, because he did so “as part of an attempt to argue” that Germany was not the aggressor in World War II.
The ruling, made last November but released on Thursday, stems from a case brought in the eastern German state of Thuringia, where an 82-year-old man walked into a pub and began complaining about a docuмentary on World War II that was running on a TV there.
He questioned what he called the “lies” about the origins of the war, and the role that Jєωs supposedly played in altering the historical record afterwards.
He then returned two days later, began another argument and gave the landlord several neo-nαzι pamphlets. One of these, entitled “The historical lie of the so-called attack on Poland in 1939,” claimed that no gas chambers were used in the Third Reich.
The landlord kept the fascist pamphlets and later pressed charges against the man, who was convicted of hate crime through distributing literature in two Thuringia courts in June 2006 and April 2007. The man – who believed his freedom of speech had been violated – then appealed to the constitutional court, who ruled in his favour.
Germany’s highest court, based in the western town of Karlsruhe, said that the man’s arguments counted as freedom of speech, and were thus protected by article five of the German constitution. The ruling also said the man, who one judge described as “even today a zealous proponent of National Socialist ideology and historical forgery,” had not committed hate crimes, because he had only passed on the literature to one other person.
“Even the dissemination of National Socialist ideas as a radical questioning of the status quo” is not necessarily outside the protection of article five, the court said.
h0Ɩ0cαųst denial remains illegal in Germany, the court underlined, saying the h0Ɩ0cαųst was “a historically-proven fact that normally does not come under the protection of the freedom of speech.”
But the court decided that this was not the decisive point of the man’s arguments. He was simply using the denial as an “introductory attempt at an explanation” to deny Germany’s guilt for World War II in general.
Some critics do see Germany’s law on h0Ɩ0cαųst denial as a threat to the freedom of speech, but the court expressly said that this ruling in no way affected that law.
The Local/bk
-
http://www.thelocal.de/national/20120223-40933.html
Some critics do see Germany’s law on h0Ɩ0cαųst denial as a threat to the freedom of speech, but the court expressly said that this ruling in no way affected that law.
"Two plus two equals four."
"Yes, that's true, but when you're in Germany, it equals five."
-
Interesting how Bishop Fellay has shown him absolutely no support since this whole thing began.
Perhaps Bishop Williamson wouldn't be in the hole he is in today if he had some support from Fellay and the Society. Instead, Fellay says we shouldn't be anti-Jєωιѕн...
-
Interesting how Bishop Fellay has shown him absolutely no support since this whole thing began.
Perhaps Bishop Williamson wouldn't be in the hole he is in today if he had some support from Fellay and the Society. Instead, Fellay says we shouldn't be anti-Jєωιѕн...
Whilst Menzingen did pay the Bishop's legal fees, it is true some clerics and faithful stabbed him in the back.Fr. Niklaus Pfluger's malice against the Bishop is well docuмented. The Menzingen lawyer! Let's not get started on him. Bishop Williamson feels very hard done by.
This appeal is a great victory for Catholic Resistance. The prosecution are saving face. They won't subject the Bishop to a retrial.
Hopefully now the Bishop can travel to the SSPX chapels. He was invited by several of the Irish chapels for confirmation but Bishop Fellay refused this invitation. Other requests have been made in other Districts. There is nothing other than excuses from Bishop Fellay stopping the Bishop from travelling.
Bishop Williamson has great support among Society clerics and faithful. This frightens the enemy. The enemy tried to present him as an isolated individual that was abandoned by his own. Far from it. Priests and faithful have stood 100% in support of the Bishop. He is a Bishop carrying on the tradition and apostolate of Archbishop Lefebvre.
Our prayers have been answered.
-
I wonder if the fact that Bishop Williamson's defense was sabotaged had anything to do with the vacation of the conviction.
-
Interesting how Bishop Fellay has shown him absolutely no support since this whole thing began.
Perhaps Bishop Williamson wouldn't be in the hole he is in today if he had some support from Fellay and the Society. Instead, Fellay says we shouldn't be anti-Jєωιѕн...
Whilst Menzingen did pay the Bishop's legal fees, it is true some clerics and faithful stabbed him in the back.Fr. Niklaus Pfluger's malice against the Bishop is well docuмented. The Menzingen lawyer! Let's not get started on him. Bishop Williamson feels very hard done by.
This appeal is a great victory for Catholic Resistance. The prosecution are saving face. They won't subject the Bishop to a retrial.
Hopefully now the Bishop can travel to the SSPX chapels. He was invited by several of the Irish chapels for confirmation but Bishop Fellay refused this invitation. Other requests have been made in other Districts. There is nothing other than excuses from Bishop Fellay stopping the Bishop from travelling.
Bishop Williamson has great support among Society clerics and faithful. This frightens the enemy. The enemy tried to present him as an isolated individual that was abandoned by his own. Far from it. Priests and faithful have stood 100% in support of the Bishop. He is a Bishop carrying on the tradition and apostolate of Archbishop Lefebvre.
Our prayers have been answered.
Indeed they have, God Bless Bishop Williamson!
-
Interesting how Bishop Fellay has shown him absolutely no support since this whole thing began.
Perhaps Bishop Williamson wouldn't be in the hole he is in today if he had some support from Fellay and the Society. Instead, Fellay says we shouldn't be anti-Jєωιѕн...
Well, I expect that is because Bishop Fellay thinks what Bishop Williamson said was really, really stupid.
-
This is a positive sign for the good Bishop.
-
Well, I expect that is because Bishop Fellay thinks what Bishop Williamson said was really, really stupid.
Saying something stupid in good faith isn't a sin.
But going along with a global campaign press campaign against your brother bishop for having a historical opinion almost certainly is.
-
Interesting how Bishop Fellay has shown him absolutely no support since this whole thing began.
Perhaps Bishop Williamson wouldn't be in the hole he is in today if he had some support from Fellay and the Society. Instead, Fellay says we shouldn't be anti-Jєωιѕн...
Well, I expect that is because Bishop Fellay thinks what Bishop Williamson said was really, really stupid.
It wasn't.
It was certainly no more stupid than Fellay's comment, which was "Jesus was a Jєω. Mary was a Jєω. The Apostles were Jєωιѕн. So we shouldn't be anti-Jєωιѕн".
-
Number CCXLII (242)
3 March 2012
GOOD NEWS
Many if not all of you readers will have heard by now of last week’s good news from Germany: on Ash Wednesday the Appeals Court of Lower Bavaria in Nuremberg quashed the Regensburg Regional Court’s condemnation of me on 11 July of last year for “racial incitement”. Then I was condemned for having, in November of 2008, on German soil, in an interview to Swedish television, taken a politically incorrect view of certain historical events differing from the view commonly held, but now the Appeals Court has decreed in addition that the Bavarian State must pay my trial costs so far. All honour to my defence lawyer, Prof. Dr. Edgar Weiler, whose arguments the judges made their own, and to Fr. Schmidberger who introduced me to him, and to Bishop Fellay who approved of him.
However, I am not yet free and clear insofar as the Appeal judges made their decision on procedural grounds. Here is their conclusion : “If an indictment describes behaviour of the accused not punishable (as yet), and leaves open what concrete circuмstances supposedly render him liable to punishment, then by not listing the inner and outer facts of the case the indictment is failing in its function, laid out above, of defining the action for which the accused is being put on trial. Case dismissed.”
So in theory, the Regensburg Prosecutor’s office could correct its procedure and start the prosecution all over again. However, in practice they may well hesitate, because the Appeal judges called on them to specify who exactly came to know of the remarks, by what means they came to know of them, how exactly those remarks were apt to disturb the peace in Germany and finally how I was supposed to have approved of the remarks being made known there.
Now the prosecution might easily show that the whole wide world, let alone Germany, was hammered for a month with the remarks by all the world’s media (mainly in order to force Benedict XVI to distance himself from Catholic Tradition), but it would not be so easy to prove the disturbance of the peace in Germany. Also the prosecutors would have real difficulty in proving that I wanted my remarks to be made public in Germany, given that in the last minute of the interview (accessible on Youtube) I expressly wished the contrary. So it is in God’s hands whether the prosecution will continue, or not.
Meanwhile, dear readers, do not suppose that I have ever suffered too heavily from these trials in Germany, any more than I have needed to take too tragically my corresponding three-year exile within the SSPX. That exile has been if anything too comfortable, and these trials have ended, for the moment at least, in their complete termination. Let me then thank all of you that in the course of these three years have prayed for me. I know there are many of you, and I am grateful to every one of you. In return I celebrated in January a novena of Masses for your intentions, because surely much greater trials lie in wait for all of us.
Kyrie eleison.