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A Spanish priest who was facing three years in prison for remarks he made in 2016 that were critical of radical Islam was acquitted.
“I thank God and the Christian people who supported me with their prayers and their presence in court,” Father Custodio Ballester told Fox News Digital in a statement Monday of his acquittal, which was published on Friday.
Ballester, along with another priest, Fr. Jesús Calvo, and journalist Armando Robles, faced multiple years behind bars for alleged hate-speech violations.
“The Spanish state has turned the hate crime law into a tool of censorship and social control,” Ballester said. “The penalties are comparable to those for rape or a fight that left someone quadriplegic.”
“Crime is no longer prosecuted—thought is,” he added. “Your own words are criminalized, and you are held responsible for what someone else might do after hearing you. And if that thought, that word, is Christian, traditional, or critical of Islam, it becomes a hate crime. It is ideological persecution disguised as justice. Hate crime law is one-directional. Offenses against Christian sentiments are labeled freedom of expression. Criticism of Islam is labeled hate crime.”
Ballester said his case represents a deeper cultural decline in Europe and that Christianity is being pushed out. He contrasted the current situation in Europe with the United States, which he said still understands the cost of liberty.
“In the United States, freedom has a meaning we have lost in Europe,” Ballester said. “When I visited Washington to participate in the March for Life, I saw the Korean War Memorial. There is an inscription that reads: ‘Freedom is not free.’ So you know that it must be fought for every day.”
Ballester believes the push to silence religious and conservative voices is part of a broader global movement and warned the United States is not immune to this movement.
Fox News Digital reached out to Miguel Ángel Aguilar García, prosecutor and coordinator of the Office of the Attorney General against hate crimes and discrimination in Spain, for comment.
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