ECA has written to the Cultural Committee of the European Parliament in order to draw the attention to the problem of artists falling victim to the European Arrest Warrant as a result of producing artistic content or, even worse, as a result of licences being sold without their knowledge.
ECA proposes the MEPs to consider a parliamentary initiative to avoid cases like the one of Gerhard Haderer in the future.The initiative is explained beneath.
Artists and the European Arrest Warrant
When Austrian cartoonist Gerhard Haderer wrote and illustrated a book in 2002 satirizing the Gospels, he no doubt anticipated controversy. He did not, however, expect to face time in a Greek prison. In his book titled The Life of Jesus, Haderer, best known for his biting caricatures in the German newsweekly Stern, depicts Jesus as a binge-drinking, pot-smoking surfer whose “miracles” are nothing more than unlikely coincidences. The 40-page book, which sold over 100,000 copies in Germany and has been translated into 10 languages, appeared only briefly in Greece in 2002 before authorities pulled it from bookstores at the insistence of the country's powerful Orthodox clergy. The cartoonist said that he did not even know that his book had been published in Greece until he received the court summons. In January 2005, an Athens judge handed Haderer a six-month suspended sentence in absentia for "malicious public blasphemy." Haderer appealed the ruling — risking a two-year prison sentence for doing so — and the case went to the Greek Supreme Court. The 54-year-old cartoonist was facing the same charges that Socrates faced in Athens more than 24 centuries ago. But unlike Socrates, Haderer lacked the option of exile. Under an EU legal treaty that came into force in 2004, the Greek court had issued a warrant for his arrest. Fortunately for Haderer, on April 13 the Greek Supreme Court overturned his blasphemy conviction and lifted the ban on his book. According to the publisher's Web site, the cartoonist celebrated the ruling with a Greek salad and two shots of ouzo. Haderer managed to avoid prison, but his case illustrates how, in world of increasing legal integration and transnational publishing, the shadow of censorship now falls across national borders. Threats to free expression no longer come only from local school boards and city councils, where writers and artists can face their censors. More and more, it is judges and lawmakers in foreign cities who decide what people can and cannot say.
(From: Eoin O'Carroll: How European States Export Censorship)
Austria is not required to extradite its own nationals for conduct that is not a crime in Austria. But unfortunately for Haderer's case, blasphemy remains a crime in Austria's criminal code. Luckily enough legal proceedings in Austria had ended with the acquittal of the artist before the court’s decision in Greece. The book was not considered to be blasphemous. But what, if the Austrian proceedings had not been concluded in time? What, if Haderer had been arrested in any of the 23 remaining EU member countries?
The European Council of Artists asked the renowned Austrian lawyer and legal specialist for artists’ rights Alfred Noll to write a legal report on the issue and provide ECA with proposals for initiatives on a European level. Noll underlines that the question “Artists and the European Arrest Warrant” is a serious matter and badly needs revision.
-At the level of the European Convention of Human Rights, action would therefore be needed primarily in the sense of a Europe-wide unquestioned basic legislation on the protection of the freedom of the arts, for instance in the framework of an additional protocol to the ECHR.
- Within the context of the European Arrest Warrant itself, there is the possibility at the European level to draw up a reviewable negative list—as had been proposed by the Commission— which would ensure that certain deeds may under no circumstances constitute a cause for issuing a European Arrest Warrant.
- Moreover, there is urgent need for action in the sense of concrete definitions for the 32 listed offences and the restriction of this list to cases of serious crimes (the three-year limit specified in Article 2.2 of the Framework Decision does not constitute any guarantee that only serious crimes are covered).
- At the national level it is, above all, the possibilities of denying the execution of a European Arrest Warrant which should be extensively interpreted and broadly taken advantage of.
ECA decided to take the matter to the cultural committee of the European parliament and asks the MEPs to discuss the matter and propose amendments to protect European artists from falling victim to a legislation that was intended to fight terrorism, not the production of artistic content.
For further back-ground you can find Alfred Noll's complete paper in English or German by going back to March 2006 in the newslist.