Holocaust denial ban to go ahead
The German bid to spread its holocaust denial laws across the entire European union has gone a step further, although in a watered-down form. The new law will make it an offence to deny or trivialise the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, but only if the effect is to incite racial hatred or violence.
A Polish/Baltic attempt to have Stalin’s crimes covered was rejected as was, in a nod to candidate-hopeful Turkey, any mention of the Armenian genocide. Germany’s bid to ban Nazi iconography has also been dropped.
While it’s good that the law has been watered down, (my thoughts on the original proposal are here: German bid to spread fascism), it is still an entirely unwarranted limitation on freedom of speech. There are already laws against inciting violence and inciting hatred is nothing more than thoughtcrime.
On a related topic, Spiked has an essay (Turning society into Room 101) on the “pathologisation” of certain types of expression:
People are silenced because they are ‘in denial’ (of the Holocaust or climate change), or because they’re ‘phobic’ (whether Islamophobic or homophobic), or because they spread ‘hate speech’ (they’re consumed by irrational hatred). All of these new censorious categories – denial, phobia, hatefulness – speak to the pathologisation of certain ideas. Speech is increasingly depicted as a sickness, and censorship as the cure.
Hat tip: Kiwiblog.
April 20th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
[…] The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust will be holding its second annual conference on Monday 30th April at the Town Hall in Leeds, England (conference details pdf here). No doubt there will be much discussion of the merits of legislation against holocaust denial. The German proposal in January to have the EU make holocuast denial a criminal offence as a matter of EU law (blogged here by me, and with great insight by Section 14 and Liberal England) was debated in the Parliament in March, and was adopted by the Council of Ministers yesterday (see: press release (pdf) | BBC | FT (also here) | IHT | Independent | Irish Times | David Farrar’s Kiwiblog | Dizzythinks | Johnathan Calder on Liberal England | Marketplace of Ideas | and of course Section 14). From the EU press release: The following intentional conduct will be punishable in all EU Member States: […]
April 20th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Heh, I was just looking at an article about these laws and came here to see if you’d posted about it already, and here it is!
Phil suggested you post about the Hastings bullies who posted the Youtube video.
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:24 pm
The idea of banning holocaust denial is no doubt a restriction on freedom of speech. The evidence that the Nazi holocaust occured is so strong that I doubt if even the holocaust deniers themselves genuinely beleive that the holocaust never happened. The limitation on it being used to incite racial hatred or racial violence are a weak safegaurd. For instance if a german neonazi organization were to claim/lie that the holocaust was a myth invented by Jews to make themselves look like victims and promote sympaty for them while making Germans look bad, could, unless inciting racial hate was tightly defined, be labbled inciting racial hate. Furhter banning holocaust denial might only give more publicity for those few idiots who deny those tragic events. The issue of banning denial of Stalins crimes, Armwnian genocide, shows that there could be a slipery slope involved with this ban.
April 23rd, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Did you follow the Ernst Zundel trial at all? And his lawyer?
I’ve remarked before that it’s sad free speech has such ugly poster children.
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:44 pm
I first came across Zündel in Why People Believe Weird Things but I haven’t followed his latest trial - and this is the first I’ve heard of his lawyer being charged with similar offences.
H. L. Mencken also observed these ugly poster children: The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:43 am
cool site for my mind its very goodPlease, send your abuse here!!! send.your.abuse.here@gmail.com