Priest acquitted of hate crime charges for radical Islam comment

A Spanish priest who was facing three years in prison for making critical remarks about radical Islam nearly a decade ago has been acquitted, as concerns about the state of free speech and freedom of religion in Spain persist. 

The advocacy organization Abogados Cristianos announced in an X post last Friday that “The Malaga Court [acquitted] Father Custodio [Ballester], prosecuted for criticizing Islam: there is no hate crime.” Abogados Cristianos had circulated a petition urging Miguel Angel Aguilar, the hate crimes prosecutor, to drop the charges against Ballester. As of Thursday afternoon, the petition has garnered more than 29,000 signatures.

As explained in the petition, “Father Custodio’s nightmare began in 2017, after he made statements in which he claimed that ‘radical Islam wanted to destroy Christian civilization and wipe out the entire West.’ This statement earned him a complaint from the association ‘Muslims Against Islamophobia,’ which began a disproportionate persecution that continues to this day.”

Ballester was also charged with making comments in 2016 questioning Cardinal Juan Jose Omella’s call for dialogue with Islam. “This renewed revival of Christian-Muslim dialogue, paralyzed by the alleged ‘imprudence’ of the beloved Benedict XVI, is far from a reality,” he wrote in a letter. “Islam does not allow for dialogue. You either believe or you are an infidel who must be subdued one way or another.”

The Rev. Franklin Graham, CEO of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, praised Ballester’s acquittal as “good news” in an X post on Monday. 

The charges against Ballester and his subsequent acquittal took place amid broader concerns about the state of free speech in Spain. A 2023 report compiled by Justita’s Future Free Speech Project documented a 2015 reform to the Spanish Criminal Code that “enshrined a very broad notion of hate speech, which does not necessarily require the concurrence of a direct and justifiable link with incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.” 

“This consideration of hate speech as a broad category has enabled individuals and collectives such as politicians and security forces to criminally prosecute anyone who insults them on social media, thus giving rise to a situation of intimidation of anyone who expresses distasteful or hurtful ideas, especially in political discourse, artistic creation, and parody,” the report stated. 

Spanish Observatory for Religious Freedom and Conscience President Maria Garcia, who leads another advocacy organization supporting Ballester, characterized the prosecution of Ballester as a violation of religious freedom and raised free speech concerns. “It is alarming that a priest can be tried and face imprisonment simply for warning, in the exercise of his freedom of expression and conscience, about the threat of radical jihadism,” she said in a Sept. 29 statement.

“Defending religious freedom also means protecting the freedom of those, like Father Custodio, who warn of realities that have already caused fatalities in our country and in Europe,” Garcia added. She recalled how “In January 2023, a jihadist murdered a sacristan, Diego Valencia, in Alegciras and injured another priest.” She then posed the question, “Is the crime committed by those who denounce the violence or by those who carry it out?”

According to Garcia, “Denouncing the threat of radical jihadism cannot be grounds for judicial persecution. What is truly alarming is the attempt to silence the voices of those who warn of the real dangers to our coexistence and security.” 

A report published last month by the Spanish Observatory for Religious Freedom and Conscience found that there were 25% more attacks on religious freedom in Spain in 2024 compared to 2023. The advocacy organization reported that 243 attacks, which were directed at believers, as well as places of worship and religious symbols, occurred in 2024. 

The Spanish Observatory for Religious Freedom and Conscience found that 69% of the attacks were directed at Christians, while instances of antisemitism grew by 38% compared to 2023 and had increased by 867% since 2022. The report documented a 44% increase in what it called “belligerent secularism,” referring to “institutional or social actions that actively exclude religion from public life.”