The Defence of Freedom

"Not all offences are crimes," writes sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf in a commentary. He warns about the dangers of restricting freedom of opinion for the sake of defending other types of freedom. "In my opinion Holocaust denial, unlike the incitement to kill Jews, should not be made a punishable crime. Nor should the many attacks against the West, which are common in mosques, be banned – no matter how vicious they are. Openly inciting a person to join a suicide squad, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter. And what about the glorification of the so-called 'martyrs' who have been killed while killing others? It's not easy to draw the line between implicit and explicit incitement, but here too, we should act generously rather than being too strict."

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