Jailed for denying the Holocaust!!

[rocam]

The Times February 21, 2006

Backlash at jailing of historian who denied Holocaust
FROM ROGER BOYES IN VIENNA

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...50069,,00.html


DAVID IRVING, the far-right British historian, sat stunned and open-mouthed yesterday when an Austrian court found him guilty of denying the Holocaust and sentenced him to three years in jail.

“I’m very shocked and I’m going to appeal,” Irving, 67, said as he was bundled out of the Vienna courtroom by armed anti-riot police.

From the public gallery a British supporter shouted “Stay strong, David”, before he too was led away. But in Britain there was dismay at a verdict that could turn Irving into a right-wing martyr.

Irving had pleaded guilty to denying the Holocaust in two speeches in Austria in 1989. He was arrested when he re-entered the country, where it is a crime to deny the Holocaust, last November, and had been in custody since.

During his seven-hour trial yesterday Irving sought to convince the jury that he had changed his mind and now acknowledged the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis.

“I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz,” he told the court.

But the judge and jury were unswayed. One hundred and fifty-eight people have been convicted of Holocaust denial in Austria between 1999 and 2004, but only a handful other than Irving have been imprisoned.

Lord Janner of Braunstone, chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust, was pleased by the conviction.

He said: “It sends a clear message to the world that we must not tolerate the denial of the mass murderers of the Holocaust. The Nazis tried to wipe out an entire people . . . We must learn the lessons of the past to build a decent society for the future.”

The verdict came amid a furious debate in Europe over freedom of expression, with many defending the media’s right to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The Arabic television station al-Jazeera broadcast the verdict to its Islamic audience.

Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, was recently acquitted of making speeches inciting racial hatred. Abu Hamza, the radical Islamic cleric, was sentenced last week to seven years in prison for inciting racial hatred and soliciting murder.

In Britain there was alarm at the sentence. “Anyone who denies the Holocaust is off their rocker,” Gerald Howarth, Tory MP for Aldershot, said. “But to send a man to prison for three years for something that he said sixteen years ago and has since changed his view — what are we coming to?”

Anthony Beevor, the military historian, said: “However nauseating, these people should be confronted in debate rather than chucked into jail and turned into martyrs.”

The verdict will end for good the career of a man banned from a dozen countries from Canada to South Africa for belittling the murder of the Jews and glorifying Hitler.

In 2000 Irving was forced into bankruptcy when he unsuccessfully sued Deborah Lipstadt, an American academic who had called him a Holocaust denier. He was ordered to pay £3 million in legal costs and had to sell his Mayfair home.

She said yesterday: “He should have been met by the sound of one hand clapping. The one thing he deserves, he really deserves, is obscurity.”

[rocam]

Is David Irving's jail sentence justified?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...050481,00.html

[voltaires_priest]

Irving is a stupid old tosser who talks a load of crap, and courts neo-nazis in order to gain himself an audience to do so. He's about as much use to serious history as a chocolate teapot.

However, that having been said, should talking crap be a criminal offence? No, probably not.



V

[rocam]

I honestly don’t even know who this man is and only found out about this story a few days ago. But in light of everything that has happened lately, I thought it would be interesting to get people’s opinions on this subject.

[Boogski]

Is Austria known for trampling on what the West considers normal human and civil rights? I read somewhere that they are a little sensitive when it comes to holocaust denial because it wasn't all that long ago and the Austrians were somewhat involved. Even if the law is a bit quirky, it seems like an easy one not to break while in Austria.

[voltaires_priest]

Even so Boogski, I think it's wrong to jail him, essentially for talking nonsense. After all, holocaust denial is not illegal in the UK, nor (as far as I'm aware) in the USA - and it is hardly as if either nation is crawling with neo-nazis as a consequence.



V

[_DigitaLVampirE_]

Holocaust denial is illegal in ten European countries: France (Loi Gayssot), Belgium (Belgian Negationism Law), Switzerland (article 261bis of the Penal Code), Germany, Austria (article 3h Verbotsgesetz 1947), Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, and Poland (article 55 of the law creating the Institute of National Remembrance 1998); it is also illegal in Israel. Many of these countries also have broader laws against libel or inciting racial hatred, as do a number of countries that do not specifically have laws against Holocaust denial, such as Canada and the United Kingdom. The Council of Europe's 2003 Additional Protocol to the Convention on cybercrime, concerning the criminalisation of acts of a racist and xenophobic nature committed through computer systems includes an article 6 titled Denial, gross minimisation, approval or justification of genocide or crimes against humanity, though this does not have the status of law.
Of the countries that ban Holocaust denial, half (Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Romania, and Slovakia) were among the perpetrators of the Holocaust, and many of these also ban other elements associated with Nazism, such as Nazi symbols. Additionally, scholars have pointed out that countries that specifically ban Holocaust denial generally have legal systems that limit speech in other ways, such as banning hate speech. In the words of D. Guttenplan, this is a split between the "common law countries of the US, Britain, and former British colonies from the civil law countries of continental Europe. In civil law countries the law is generally more prescriptive. Also under the civil law regime the judge acts more as an inquisitor, gathering and presenting evidence as well as interpreting it"[41]

Many Holocaust deniers claim their work falls under a "universal right to free speech", and see these laws as a confirmation of their own beliefs, arguing that the truth does not need to be legally enforced. Some people who do not deny that the Holocaust occurred nevertheless oppose such restrictions of free speech, including, despite her legal battle with David Irving, Deborah Lipstadt. Another prominent opponent of the laws is Noam Chomsky. An uproar resulted when Serge Thion used one of Chomsky's essays without explicit permission as a foreword to a book of Holocaust denial essays. See: Criticism of Noam Chomsky. At times, Holocaust deniers seek to rely on Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of expression, when faced with criminal sanctions against their statements or publications. The European Court of Human Rights however consistently declares their complaints inadmissible. According to Article 17 of the Convention, nothing in the Convention may be construed so as to justify acts that are aimed at destroying any of the very rights and freedoms contained therein. Invoking free speech to propagate denial of crimes against humanity is, according to the Court's case-law, contrary to the spirit in which the Convention was adopted in the first place. Reliance on free speech in such cases would thus constitute an abuse of a fundamental right.

Famous Holocaust deniers
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Arthur R. Butz
Bobby Fischer
Robert Faurisson
Roger Garaudy
Jürgen Graf
Richard E. Harwood
Michael Hoffman II
David Irving
Jüri Lina
Tiit Madisson
Norman Lowell

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocau...locaust_denial