A court in Spain has acquitted two Catholic priests and a journalist of “hate speech” charges for publicly criticizing Islam, ending an eight-year legal battle.
The Provincial Court of Málaga on Oct. 1 found the Rev. Custodio Ballester of Barcelona was guilty of creating “Islamophobic” comments in a chat show and in writing, however the court later made public that the comments didn’t constitute hate speech and dismissed all such charges against him, the Rev. Jesús Calvo and journalist Armando Robles.
Ballester made the comments during a 2017 online interview on the talk show “La Ratonera” with Calvo and Robles. Ballester also criticized Islam in a 2016 article he wrote entitled, “The Impossible Dialogue with Islam.”
During the net talk show, Ballester reiterated his views from the 2016 article. The priest wrote on the time, “Radical Islam desires to destroy Christian civilization and raze the West to the bottom.” His writing responded to a pastoral letter, “The Necessary Dialogue with Islam,” which Cardinal Juan José Omella, archbishop of Barcelona, wrote supporting Christian-Muslim dialogue.
“This renewed revival of Christian-Muslim dialogue, paralyzed by the alleged ‘imprudence’ of the beloved Benedict XVI, is removed from a reality,” Ballester wrote in response. “Islam doesn’t allow for dialogue. You either imagine or you’re an infidel who should be subdued a method or one other.”
The priest denounced Muslim persecution of Christians in countries like Nigeria, Syria and Bangladesh.
Ballester told Fox News Digital he felt an ethical obligation to talk the reality.
“One cannot speak of dialogue when, in Islamic countries, Christians are persecuted, murdered, or forced to pay the jizya [tax on non-Muslims] to survive,” Ballester told Fox News Digital. “Cardinal Omella spoke in regards to the dialogue, but I responded from the fact our persecuted brothers live.”
The Association of Muslims Against Islamophobia had filed a criticism against Ballester, Calvo and Robles after the published. This led prosecutors to hunt three-year jail terms for each priests and a four-year jail term for Robles, based on an Oct. 22 report by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). Prosecutors also wanted the court to levy fines and ban each priests from teaching.
The Spanish Penal Code’s Article 510 criminalizes public expressions that incite hatred, hostility, discrimination or violence against groups based on religion, race and other categories. The law, which the federal government introduced in 1995 and expanded in 2015 to incorporate online offenses, punishes those that publicly encourage or promote hatred. Penalties range from one to 4 years in prison, and the prosecutor in Ballester’s case had requested a three-year term.
Europa Press reported that the Málaga court ruled that the “objective and/or subjective elements required for the hate-speech offense are lacking.”
“No matter how despicable or perverse the message could also be, or even when the statements could also be clearly offensive or unlucky, they don’t in themselves constitute a punishable offence,” stated the court, based on the Europa Press.
Responding to the acquittal, Ballester thanked God and Christians for supporting him each in prayer and in person on the court hearing, the BGEA reported.
Veteran evangelist Franklin Graham celebrated the ruling on social media channel X.
“It’s unbelievable that this Catholic priest from Spain needed to go to trial to defend his right to talk the reality about radical Islam,” wrote Graham. “I appreciate the incontrovertible fact that Father Custodio Ballester wouldn’t back down, even within the face of a jail term. He was also threatened with a 10-year ban from preaching … I’m not a Catholic, but I’ll be preaching in Spain next yr and I hope to have a likelihood to satisfy him!”
Ballester said he was “not surprised” in regards to the initial criticism, which led to the charge in court.
“In this Spain, corrupted by woke culture, telling the reality about radical Islam is taken into account a criminal offense,” said Ballester. “But as a priest, my duty is to Christ and to truth, to not the ideological consensus imposed by the federal government.”
Crime is not any longer prosecuted but “thought is,” he said.
“Your own words are criminalized, and you’re held chargeable for what another person might do after hearing you. And if that thought, that word, is Christian, traditional or critical of Islam, it becomes a hate crime,” Ballester said. “It is ideological persecution disguised as justice. Hate crime law is one-directional. Offences against Christian sentiments are labeled freedom of expression. Criticism of Islam is labeled hate crime.”
Ballester, a former special forces soldier, previously told Catholic News Service (CNA) that his statements never contained discriminatory or hateful language. He told journalists and supporters outside the court after the initial guilty verdict that he felt calm.
Nearly 30,000 people signed a protest petition by Christian advocacy group Abogados Cristianos (Christian Attorneys). The lawyers’ group called the court verdict a “double standard of a law that’s useless for all of us who receive attacks and humiliations due to our Christian faith.”
“They won’t ever censor the criticism, disrespect or continuous offenses that broadcast from the tv sets towards Catholics,” Abogados Cristianos said in a web-based explanation of the petition for Hate Crimes prosecutor Miguel Ángel Aguilar to wisthdraw the accusation against the priest. “However, nobody can doubt the behavior of certain groups that they’re excited by protecting and glorifying. If we tolerate that this injustice is committed with Father Custos [Custodio], we shall be setting a fatal precedent.”
The legal battle, nevertheless, has likely not ended, Ballester said, based on Fox News.
“My sentence has greatly angered the prosecutor’s office since it halts all proceedings against freedom of expression,” Ballester reportedly said. “They are going to appeal to the upper courts. The heads of the hate prosecutor’s office…don’t like defeat. We will proceed to fight for freedom.”
 A court in Spain has acquitted two Catholic priests and a journalist of “hate speech” charges for publicly...){kind=link}