EU official urges criminalizing holocaust denial
European Union Freedom, Security and Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini has urged the 27 EU nations to adopt laws criminalizing denials of the Holocaust and incitement of hatred and racial violence. Jurist Legal News and Research reports:
"Frattini said that proposed minimum prison sentences for individuals who deny the Holocaust or incite racial violence or hatred would not contravene the European Convention of Human Rights [text]. Germany has already announced its intent to pursue the proposal [JURIST report], which has previously been blocked due to freedom of expression concerns, as part of its platform [PDF test in German] for the 2007 EU presidency [official website]. Several EU countries have taken steps to criminalize Holocaust denial at the national level - the Italian cabinet approved a draft bill [JURIST report] to that effect Thursday, and it is currently illegal to deny the Holocaust in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and Spain."
My opinion: it is a very bad idea to make it a crime to deny any historical fact, no matter how absurd or malicious may be the denial. It does indeed curb freedom of speech.
"Frattini said that proposed minimum prison sentences for individuals who deny the Holocaust or incite racial violence or hatred would not contravene the European Convention of Human Rights [text]. Germany has already announced its intent to pursue the proposal [JURIST report], which has previously been blocked due to freedom of expression concerns, as part of its platform [PDF test in German] for the 2007 EU presidency [official website]. Several EU countries have taken steps to criminalize Holocaust denial at the national level - the Italian cabinet approved a draft bill [JURIST report] to that effect Thursday, and it is currently illegal to deny the Holocaust in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and Spain."
My opinion: it is a very bad idea to make it a crime to deny any historical fact, no matter how absurd or malicious may be the denial. It does indeed curb freedom of speech.
posted by Stephen Denney | 4:28 PM
3 Comments:
What are they so afraid of? If the facts supporting the 'holocaust' claims are there, then laws like this are truly unnecessary, punitive actions against free-inquiry. Facts need no laws to support them. Facts can withstand examination time and again. Throughout history, from Galileo to Zundel, Darwin, Irving, Faurisson and Rudolf, only lies and liars have resorted to the courts & the legislature to enforce adherence to dogma.
People confuse being told something six million times with knowing something. They are not the same. The average man knows’ the Holocaust exists because: 1) everybody uses the term; 2) he has seen photos of stacked bodies; 3) he has read Anne Frank’s book; 4) authorities agree that questioning any of this is ‘hate.’ In other words, the average man believes in the Holocaust for no logical reason, but out of simple mammalian conformity.
‘Holocaust’ is no ordinary noun. Rather, it is a loaded gun leveled at the head of the West and the rest. Give them their money and their pride of place or get your head and reputation blown off. You will notice that never, ever does debate in the captive media condescend to deconstruct the Zionist Privilege embodied in and sanctified by the designer label ‘Holocaust.’ Worship the Zionists and submit to their demands - that is what the term Holocaust means.
A demand for special privilege protected by a shell of pseudo-history; that is an objective description of the term. The heart of the ‘Holocaust,’ taking at face value the term’s pretension to historical designation, is the claim that six million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany, most of them by gassing. The evidence for the gassing is never discussed. Photos of crematories and bodies stacked like cord wood are shown. No context or explanation of the reason for showing them is given. The connection is to be assumed. But never is any ordinary evidence, let alone proof, of the gassing allegation advanced. That Jews were gassed is treated as though it were already proved and therefore unquestionable, save by the depraved. Thus, the practical job of the media and the well intentioned everyman is to smear and ostracize anybody who argues against settled truth. We all know that Jews were gassed, and that those who say otherwise are deniers driven by hate.
We are told repeatedly that the ‘Holocaust’ is both the worst thing that ever happened and the best documented thing in human history. We are to take these assertions on authority, since no genuine debate is allowed.
There are men who can prove the ‘Holocaust’ is a Big Lie.
You can find them in jail.
Their imprisonment is scarcely mentioned in the mass media. Their imprisonment goes unlamented by the mass columnists. To discuss these men and their work would endanger the Prop-sphere the media construct. They must disappear.
But we know, mass media. And we’re not going away. We’re getting louder and stronger. And there’s nothing you can do to stop us.
I think the Holocaust denial movement is dominated by neo-Nazis and racists. Nevertheless, as I said, it is a bad idea to try to outlaw any assertion about historical fact, no matter how absurd that assertion.
Stephen, how much confidence do you have that the "anonymouses" of the world will not at some point become accepted participants in a so-called "debate" over the reality of the HOlocaust? In Japan, the attempt to deny the reality of the Nanjing massacres is gathering political force. In the US, apologists for the Confederacy have already wrought pernicious havoc for over a hundred years, helping condemn American blacks to decades of second-class citizenship and organized discrimination. How confident are you that an America which had made it illegal to propagandize for the Lost Cause and against abolition and Union would have been a worse America? I think I agree with you, but I am beginning to lose confidence in my position.
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