Monday, May 04, 2009

Slovak Republic Faces Free Speech Lawsuit After Police Shut Down Pro-Life Rally

From http://lifenews.com/int1174.html

Slovak Republic Faces Free Speech Lawsuit After Police Shut Down Pro-Life Rally

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 4, 2009

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Kosice, Slovak Republic (LifeNews.com) -- The Slovak Republic, an eastern European nation, faces a free speech lawsuit after police there reportedly shut down a pro-life rally. The Centre for Bio-ethical Reform Europe filed suit on Thursday with the help of attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund.

ADF tells LifeNews.com that police put an end to a peaceful pro-life rally that was held in full compliance with domestic law.

The pro-life legal group says CBR held its “Stop Genocide” rally to inform people about the atrocities of genocide, including abortion, but Slovak police asserted the signs displayed by participants were too graphic for the general public.

“Christians and other pro-life advocates should not be discriminated against and silenced for expressing their beliefs and making people aware of the truth,” Europe-based ADF legal counsel Roger Kiska, co-counsel in the case, told LifeNews.com.

“Apparently, the police decided that they didn't want people to be faced with the unexaggerated reality of what abortion looks like. The signs were completely legal and simply displayed various images of human atrocities, including what goes on behind closed doors in [abortion centers] around the world," he added.

“Americans should not imagine that this type of government speech control only occurs overseas,” Kiska continued.

“ADF fights these types of battles in the U.S. all the time. But if the Constitutional Court in the Slovak Republic rules this police intervention legal, it will be yet another ruling that activist judges could point to in the future as a sort of precedent that U.S. courts should follow," Kiska said.

Police in the eastern Slovakian town of Kosice ended CBR Europe’s peaceful protest with no legal justification, as both the time and place of the campaign rally were fully within the law, the lawsuit contends.

The primary contention from the officers involves the signs CBR Europe used during the demonstration, which displayed photos of aborted children and other images of genocide and human rights abuses.

ADF attorneys argue that police violated the freedom of expression rights of the group’s members under both Slovak and European Convention law.

Brunno Quintivalle, a pro-life attorney from the United Kingdom, is also assisting with the case.

Related web sites:
Alliance Defense Fund - http://www.telladf.org

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