Austrian Fined for Yodeling - Muslims Offended Yet Again

[Ronja]

The Daily Mail? I would take this with a pinch of salt. The paper is several miles to the right of Fox News.

Will Austrian Times do, then? One of the commenters seems to have some local insight, which suggests that this was a climax of a long-standing quarrel between these neighbors, where the Austrian, Helmut G. had been the more aggressive/disturbing party. http://www.austriantimes.at/news/Genera ... say_judges

The year-long Friday midday noise-making of Helmut G. is told here in German, too, and the details check out with the commenter on the English site above: http://www.kobuk.at/2010/12/wie-die-kro ... -verhetzt/

So the guy was yodeling, and the judges found that he was indeed disturbing his neighbors by doing that, and it is rather comical that this happened in Austria (which is most likely the reason for the news headlines). However, he had been yodeling, mowing the lawn, and using other "creative" means to make noise ("auf andere kreative Art das Gebet seiner Nachbarn lautstark gestört und verhöhnt" in the German text) every Friday at midday for a year ("ein ganzes Jahr lang, von 2009 bis Sommer 2010 ... regelmäßig an Freitagen, immer zur Gebetszeit seiner Nachbarn"), despite the neighbors first dismantling the (part of?) their loudspeaker system that could be heard in the yard, then repeatedly asking Helmut G. to stop, and after that despite the police, called by the neighbors, asking him to stop on several separate occasions. It was the police that finally contacted the prosecutor, not the neighbors. ("Nachdem die Polizei auf ihre Bitte mehrmals eingeschritten war, hielt sie es aber für nötig, die Vorfälle an die Staatsanwaltschaft weiterzuleiten.")

It seems that the Daily Fail, the Telegraph, Austrian Times, and a few more sites have chosen to only take the beginning of the material and leave the end of the original news unpublished - the part that tells about a year of systematic noise-making. And they have chosen to quote Helmut G. directly, in a way that gives the impression that he had only done this once, and not quote the neighbors or the police. :sighsm: Neutral press, indeed.

[charlou]

I want to hear sarcastic yodelling.

Up until now I'd have thought such a thing was an oxymoron.

[Hermit]

Thanks for that second link, Ronja. Much better than the one in the opening post or anything I was able to find.

I think the defendant had it coming to him, but why did he have to be charged under §188 StGB (Herabwürdigung religiöser Lehren) or §189 (Störung von religiösen Handlungen)? Why are these laws even necessary? There must be secular equivalents along the line of harassment and disturbing the peace that would have done the same job.

In all likelihood it's not as though Griese was objecting to islam as such, let alone religion in general. I reckon he's just being an intolerant xenophobe. He deserved to get fined for that.

While I approve of Griese being fined, I vehemently disapprove of the legislation that acts as a protective shield of religion at large under which he was fined.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

The Daily Mail? I would take this with a pinch of salt. The paper is several miles to the right of Fox News.

Will Austrian Times do, then? One of the commenters seems to have some local insight, which suggests that this was a climax of a long-standing quarrel between these neighbors, where the Austrian, Helmut G. had been the more aggressive/disturbing party. http://www.austriantimes.at/news/Genera ... say_judges

The year-long Friday midday noise-making of Helmut G. is told here in German, too, and the details check out with the commenter on the English site above: http://www.kobuk.at/2010/12/wie-die-kro ... -verhetzt/

So the guy was yodeling, and the judges found that he was indeed disturbing his neighbors by doing that, and it is rather comical that this happened in Austria (which is most likely the reason for the news headlines). However, he had been yodeling, mowing the lawn, and using other "creative" means to make noise ("auf andere kreative Art das Gebet seiner Nachbarn lautstark gestört und verhöhnt" in the German text) every Friday at midday for a year ("ein ganzes Jahr lang, von 2009 bis Sommer 2010 ... regelmäßig an Freitagen, immer zur Gebetszeit seiner Nachbarn"), despite the neighbors first dismantling the (part of?) their loudspeaker system that could be heard in the yard, then repeatedly asking Helmut G. to stop, and after that despite the police, called by the neighbors, asking him to stop on several separate occasions. It was the police that finally contacted the prosecutor, not the neighbors. ("Nachdem die Polizei auf ihre Bitte mehrmals eingeschritten war, hielt sie es aber für nötig, die Vorfälle an die Staatsanwaltschaft weiterzuleiten.")

It seems that the Daily Fail, the Telegraph, Austrian Times, and a few more sites have chosen to only take the beginning of the material and leave the end of the original news unpublished - the part that tells about a year of systematic noise-making. And they have chosen to quote Helmut G. directly, in a way that gives the impression that he had only done this once, and not quote the neighbors or the police. :sighsm: Neutral press, indeed.

Thanks for that, Ronja - pretty much what I said above. I am getting to be quite the adept at picking the story out from between the Daily Maul's headlines.

[Ronja]

I think the defendant had it coming to him, but why did he have to be charged under §188 StGB (Herabwürdigung religiöser Lehren) or §189 (Störung von religiösen Handlungen)? Why are these laws even necessary? There must be secular equivalents along the line of harassment and disturbing the peace that would have done the same job.
...
While I approve of Griese being fined, I vehemently disapprove of the legislation that acts as a protective shield of religion at large under which he was fined.

Yup. Laws to "protect religion" are creepy at best.

[Berthold]

Just in case...