Germany: Abortion opponents jailed

Paul Belien at the Brussels Journal has the deeply disturbing story of Pastor Johannes Lerle, a German Lutheran cleric who was last week sentenced to a year's imprisonment for the crime of Volksverhetzung - inciting the people. He apparently did this by denying that the Holocaust took place.

Now, I think that the criminalisation of holocaust denial in countries such as Germany and Austria is ridiculous in itself, and is on something of a par with the laws in Turkey which have resulted in people facing jail for talking about the Armenian genocide. However, the case of Herr Lerle is particularly ridiculous because he did not, in fact, deny the Holocaust. Rather, he compared the annual killing by abortion of 150,000 unborn children to the Holocaust. This statement can in no way be seen as a denial of the Holocaust; indeed, it holds up the Holocaust as the yardstick of evil, against which all other evil may be measured. What has in fact happened is that Herr Lerle has gone to prison for opposing abortion.

This is not the first time Herr Lerle has gone to jail for challenging the abortionists. He had previously served eight months jail-time for describing abortionists as "professional killers". Another German pro-life activist was jailed for describing abortion as "unjust", on the grounds that non-lawyers would interpret 'unjust' as meaning 'illegal', and that therefore she was, in common parlance, wrongly accusing abortionists of breaking the law. It seems that the German courts rely on logic that would shame a ten year old in order to silence the enemies of the state.

I will refrain from further comment on this at this moment: suffice to say that if anyone denies that the above cases are deeply unjust, and indicative of a high level of totalitarianism, then they probably have something severely wrong with their moral compass. I would strongly urge readers to go over to Paul Belien's article, and read the whole of it, in which you will find many more examples of the suppression of the free speech of those who oppose the agenda of the liberal-left, across Europe.