With CNA coverage like this who needs the ADL?  https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/twice-excommunicated-bishop-loses-appeal-of-hate-speech-conviction-37268


Twice-excommunicated bishop loses appeal of hate speech conviction



   
Richard Williamson

Strasbourg, France, Feb 1, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- Richard Williamson has lost an appeal against his 2010 conviction for inciting hatred. His appeal was rejected January 31 by the European Court of Human Rights.
 
The disgraced bishop, who has been excommunicated by the Vatican on two separate occasions, was convicted of incitement to hatred for his comments amounting to h0Ɩ0cαųst denial during a television interview that aired in Sweden in January 2009.
 
In the interview, Williamson denied that millions of Jєωs were murdered by the nαzι regime, and said that he did not believe gas chambers were used in the cσncєnтrαтισn cαмρs.
 
"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,” Williamson said on camera. He went on to suggest that the number of people killed was far lower.
 
It later emerged that Williamson had a history of anti-Semitic remarks.
 
Since the Second Vatican Council, popes have routinely and regularly condemned anti-Semitism.
 
Most recently, in November 2018, Pope Francis said that “we are called to commit ourselves to ensure anti-Semitism is banned from the human community,” and said that it was important to remember the h0Ɩ0cαųst “to teach us to avoid the same errors.”
 
“A Christian cannot be an αnтι-ѕємιтє, we share the same roots,” said Pope Francis in November, 2018.
 
In Germany, where the interview was recorded in 2008, h0Ɩ0cαųst denial is a criminal offence. Williamson’s lawyers argued that he should not have been convicted as the interview only aired in Sweden, which does not have a h0Ɩ0cαųst denial law.
 
The Strasbourg-based ECHR concluded that Williamson knew that he was breaking German law at the time and did not attempt to limit the interview to Swedish airwaves alone.
 
The disgraced bishop was initially sentenced to a fine of 12,000 euros, reduced to 1,500 euros on appeal. Following the airing of the interview, he was swiftly removed from his position as the head of an SSPX seminary in Argentina.
 
Williamson holds the unique distinction of having been excommunicated by the Church twice.
 
He was first excommunicated by the Catholic Church in 1988, following his illicit consecration as a bishop by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in Écône, Switzerland against the orders of Pope St. John Paul II. At the time, Williamson was a member of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), a canonically irregular religious order not in full communion with the Church.
 
Williamson’s excommunication, and that of the three other SSPX bishops consecrated by Lefebvre in 1988, was lifted in January 2009, in a decree that was signed the same day his interview aired in Sweden.
 
The lifting the excommunications by Pope Benedict XVI was part of ongoing attempts to bring the SSPX back into full communion with the Church’s hierarchy. The SSPX remains in a canonically irregular state, but does have valid sacraments.
 
Vatican officials said that they had not been aware of Williamson’s views or his comments prior to lifting his original excommunication, and ordered him to recant.
 
Williamson sent Pope Benedict XVI a letter saying he regretted causing controversy, but he did not apologize or retract his statements. The Vatican rejected his apology letter.
 
On October 4, 2012, Williamson was formally expelled from the SSPX after “refusing to show due respect and obedience” to his superiors in the society following an unauthorized visit to Brazil.
 
Williamson then joined an offshoot of the society called the SSPX Resistance, and said that he would continue ordaining priests.
 
In 2015, he was once again declared excommunicated by the Church after consecrating a bishop in Brazil without Vatican approval. Since then, he has consecrated two other bishops, including one in 2017.

Actual decision is linked in this article: http://www.humanrightseurope.org/2019/01/germany-british-bishop-loses-human-rights-appeal-against-h0Ɩ0cαųst-denial-conviction/


January 31, 2019 - European Convention of Human Rights
 
Germany: British bishop loses human rights appeal against h0Ɩ0cαųst denial conviction

A United Kingdom bishop has lost his human rights battle against Germany, following his conviction for denying the h0Ɩ0cαųst during an interview on Swedish television.

In its decision in the case of Williamson v. Germany (application no. 64496/17) the European Court of Human Rights has unanimously declared the application inadmissible.

The decision is final.

The complaint was brought by Richard Williamson, a British national who was born in 1940 and lives in Kent (the United Kingdom). He is a bishop and a former member of the Society of Saint Pius X.

The case concerned the Williamson’s complaint about his criminal conviction of incitement to hatred.

In November 2008 a journalist working for the Swedish television channel SVT-1 interviewed Williamson at the seminary of the Society of Saint Pius X in Zaitzkofen, Germany.

The applicant did not reside in Germany at that time. After having talked about religious matters, the journalist changed the topic and a dialogue ensued in which Williamson stated that he believed there were no gas chambers during the nαzι regime.

In January 2009, SVT-1 broadcasted the interview in a Swedish television programme.

In October 2009, the Regensburg District Court issued a penal order (Strafbefehl) against
Williamson, finding him guilty of incitement to hatred and sentencing him to a fine of 12,000 euros (EUR).

Following different appeals, in February 2012, the Nuremberg Court of Appeal discontinued the proceedings finding that the penal order did not meet the necessary requirements as it had not contained a description of the relevant facts defining the offence.

In October 2012, the Regensburg District Court, at the public prosecutor’s request, issued another penal order against Williamson for incitement to hatred, sentencing him to a fine of 6,500 EUR.

On an appeal by the applicant, the District Court convicted him of incitement to hatred and sentenced him to a fine of 1,800 EUR. Williamson’s conviction was upheld on further appeal.

The competent Regional Court considered that the applicant’s statement denying the existence of gas chambers during the nαzι regime and the killing of Jєωs in those gas chambers had constituted a denial of acts of genocide committed under the rule of National Socialism.

In its judgement, the European court observed that Williamson had agreed to provide the interview, in which he denied the h0Ɩ0cαųst, in Germany despite residing elsewhere at the time while knowing that the statements he made were subject to criminal liability there.

He did not insist during the interview that it not be broadcast in Germany and did not clarify with the interviewer or the television channel how the interview would be published.

The court thus found that the Regional court’s assessment of the facts was acceptable with respect to its finding that the offence had been committed in Germany, in particular because the key feature of the offence (the interview) had been carried out there.