Comparing Abortion to the Holocaust « Strasbourg Observers

Amid all the discussion regarding the A., B. and C. v. Ireland judgment, it is interesting to note that last week, in one of its first freedom of expression judgments of 2011, the European Court of Human Rights was called upon to consider an interesting issue surrounding abortion, namely the conviction for defamation of an anti-abortion activist for comparing abortion to the Holocaust.

The applicants in Hoffer v. Germany were anti-abortion activists who had handed out pamphlets outside a medical clinic in Nuremburg.

This post on the Strasbourg Observers blog was written by Rónán Ó Fathaigh, a researcher working on a Ghent University Special Research Fund project entitled “Legal analysis and explorative research of the chilling effect on freedom of expression and information”.