Historian Charged With Denying Holocaust

By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer
Thu Nov 17, 2:51 PM ET

VIENNA, Austria - Right-wing British historian David Irving, who once famously said that Adolf Hitler knew nothing about the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews, has been arrested in Austria on a warrant accusing him of denying the Holocaust.

Irving, 67, was detained Nov. 11 in the southern province of Styria on a warrant issued in 1989 under Austrian laws making Holocaust denial a crime, police Maj. Rudolf Gollia, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said Thursday.

Austrian media said the charges stemmed from speeches Irving delivered that year in Vienna and in the southern town of Leoben.

In a statement posted on his Web site, Irving's supporters said he was arrested while on a one-day visit to Vienna, where they said he had been invited "by courageous students to address an ancient university association."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051117/ap_on_re_eu/austria_irving_arrested

but I can't stand people like this who either knowingly spout lies or just ignore the facts

the man is a beast, but it should not be a crime to deny the Holocaust.

I'm Jewish. My paternal granfather's and my husband's maternal grandparents entire families perished.

But one of the first things Hitler did was restrict expression he thought was harmful to society.

neither is libel. Using lies to cause harm to entire populations is a crime. This kind of speech causes emotional distress to millions. You might no feel so, but a lot of Jewish survivors and their descendants don't feel so.

According to you Bush lies are not a crime either. "I said there were WMDS in Iraq, so what I lied." "I just used my right to free speech".

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I'm of a fine line about this--speech that outright seeks to cause violence is more of a weapon than an expression but I can't really say I think the moronic Holocaust-deniers are doing that directly. I cannot grasp why people can't just NOT LISTEN to speech they find offensive. I have to do it all the time and I haven't died yet from closing the book, turning off the TV, or changing the channel.

Plenty of people are doing research on the subject. But Irving is an anti-semitic racist mongering hatred on purpose.


From wikipedia :

In many countries, deliberate use of hate speech is a criminal offence prohibited under incitement to hatred legislation. Such prohibitions have parallels with earlier prohibitions on such issues as obscenity and blasphemy, which are or were also prosecutable offences.

Some examples:

In the United Kingdom, incitement to racial hatred is an offence under the Public Order Act 1986 with a maximum sentence of up to seven years imprisonment.
In Canada, advocating genocide or inciting hatred against any 'identifiable group' is an indictable offense under the Canadian Criminal Code with maximum terms of two to fourteen years. An 'identifiable group' is defined as 'any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.'
Victoria, Australia has enacted the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001, which prohibits one engaging in conduct that incites hatred against, serious contempt for or revulsion or severe ridicule of another on the grounds of his race or religious beliefs.

Justification for laws controlling or prohibiting hate speech
Proponents of limitations on hate speech argue that repeated instances of hate speech do more than express ideas or expresses dissent; rather, hate speech often promotes and results in fear, intimidation and harassment of individuals.

It is argued that historically hate speech has resulted in murder and even genocide of those it is targeted against.

Richard Delgado argues that, "Words such as 'nigger' and 'spick' are badges of degradation even when used between friends: these words have no other connotation." However, Judith Butler (1997) points out that, "this very statement, whether written in his text or cited here, has another connotation; he has just used the word in a significantly different way." That does not apply to some derogatory labels, which are still widely used against unpopular groups, especially new religious movements. Derogatory words such as "cult" are repeated in newspapers and sometimes even used by scholars. Scholars recognize that although many words, such as "negro" and "cult" have been used in the past with neutral meanings, shifts in language have given such words derogatory meanings and their use now constitutes hate speech.

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I don't think that the arguments against above are really valid. And your argument of "whoever decides", isn't valid either. In a democracy, the people decide. And if the people decide that "nigger" isn't free speech, it's perfectly valid. I never understood the logic in making a crime of calling a single designed person "nigger" but not millions of the same colour.

BTW I deny the 3-fold nature of God

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Plenty of people are doing serious research about the Holocaust, plenty of them non-Jews and nobody bothers them.

A few "researchers" deny the Holocaust into an attempt to :
1) paint the Nazis into a brighter picture
2) claim that the Jews are a bunch of liars, which are using a non existing event to gain sympathy and thus go on their agenda...

Those "researchers" are all tied to extremist white power groups. I haven't heard of any of them going free of those accusations.

By picturing the Holocaust as non existent these guys try to convince future recruits that the Nazis weren't that bad and that the fight against them wasn't really justified. Or stuff like "OK, there were atrocities on both sides". In other words, it's not research, but a political agenda.

I wonder how Blacks in the US would react if they were told that there never was any slavery, so that their complaints today are not justified. Who would win on such an agenda if not racists ?

The problem is that many Americans see the American Constitution as the Bible. The World has evolved since 1789. Even if this Constitution, like the French one were tremendous steps at that time, they were partly flawed as any human products. Jefferson was right about freedom of speech in general, but what I know of accepted certain restrictions. And there plenty of restrictions to free speech in the USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech

The US view on free speech is quite unique in its way. But it doesn't make it universal and true for that. Even inthe US it varies from state to state.

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It was enough to tell about non existent WMDs and alleged ties Saddam 9/11 to trick 270 million Americans into support for an unjustified and illegal war....

So you don't think that repeated denial of genocides against Jews and Blacks couldn't not fuel another genocide, if the times were to come ?

The West supported the creation of a Jewish homeland because they were not prepared to integrate them "en masse" and because they needed a friendly state to secure the oil flood through the Suez canal. And use the collective guilt Europeans felt about the holocaust.

"And I would not give up the tiniest conceivable portion of my Constitutional liberties just on the chance that another occurrence might be avoided."

says it all.

Let them burn in hell as long as MY little right is preserved. We have very different conceptions of Democracy. Sometimes I wonder if the cliche "a libertarian is a freeper with a modem" isn't about completely right.

Also some people really believe this stuff, even though there are still people walking around with numbered tattoos on their wrists from the concentration camps

Yes, I know Hitler put people in gas chambers and ovens because they were Jewish (or because they were Gypsy, etc.) Yes, it was every BIT as HORRIBLE as is raining white phosphorous down on civilians.

My point is that a government should not tell its people what to think or say.

And yes, I know terrorism is real. But I think the terrorists are Bush/Cheney/their international friends, not necessarily the people WE are told are terrorists.

we the people....

in a Democracy the people has the right - and the duty - to impose restriction on those who are a threat to others.

The logical conclusion of what you are saying is that Governments NEVER represent the people. I am sorry, the interdictions passed in most European countries (Canada, Australia) are the EXPRESSION of the will of the people. Not of the will of a certain group. There was a lot of debate before. Laws were VOTED, passed in assemblies, parliament, congresses. They were not "the interpretation of a certain Supreme Court or whatever alike".

people HERE.

It's not like we Americans haven't ever rejected the concepts behind some of the other countries' various laws.

You say they voted for it; I say, it's not for me.