Liberté pour l'histoire ?
The German Justice Minister's proposal for an EU-wide ban on Holocaust denial has met with a sceptical response from journalists and historians. Should the battle against Holocaust denial be a legal one or should we take a scientific and journalistic approach?
The German initiative
Delfi - Latvia | Friday, 12. January 2007
Bens Latkovskis comments on the German proposal for an EU-wide ban on Holocaust denial. "In Latvia, one could pass such a law without having to ... » more
Bens Latkovskis comments on the German proposal for an EU-wide ban on Holocaust denial. "In Latvia, one could pass such a law without having to worry too much about practical consequences. Up to now, no important personality has denied publicly the mass murder of the Jews during World War II. But this kind of legal proposal would trigger a debate about the limits of democracy... And if our 'friends' in the west would like to see that happen, why not add a few other issues to the mix, such as a ban on denial of the Soviet occupation? That would effectively end the exasperating debate about whether Latvia was occupied or not in 1940."
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El País - Spain | Wednesday, 17. January 2007
Germany, currently in charge of EU's revolving presidency, has announced the publication of a text aimed at forbidding and condemning racism and xenophobia. The daily ... » more
Germany, currently in charge of EU's revolving presidency, has announced the publication of a text aimed at forbidding and condemning racism and xenophobia. The daily doubts the efficiency of a law which would in part serve to fight negation of the Holocaust. "One may well doubt whether an interdiction dictated by a law is the best way to deal with this. On one hand it will contribute to the raising of complex problems related to initiatives intended to regulate dissident offence whilst suggesting on the other hand that public authorities are responsible for writing history. ... Mendacity is always reprehensible, all the more so when defending ulterior interests. But truth cannot necessarily be conquered by converting it into a crime. In certain cases this could even threaten freedom and harm truth."
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La Repubblica - Italy | Tuesday, 23. January 2007
The German Minister of Justice, Brigitte Zypries, supported by Franco Frattini, European Justice Commissioner, has proposed that all member States of the European Union turn ... » more
The German Minister of Justice, Brigitte Zypries, supported by Franco Frattini, European Justice Commissioner, has proposed that all member States of the European Union turn all negation of the Shoah into a penal crime. Timothy Garton Ash, the British historian and chronicler, considers that this would be a grave error and would like the other countries of the EU to reject this proposition. "The Nazi Holocaust of the European Jews was unique. The main historical facts about it should be known by every contemporary European. Trying to ensure that nothing like that ever again happens here in Europe (or anywhere else in the world, insofar as that is in our power) should be one of the fundamental aims of the EU. ... The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And this proposal is very unwise. First of all, if passed, it would further curtail free expression - at a time when that is under threat from many quarters. Free expression is a unique and primary good in free societies; it's the oxygen that sustains other freedoms. You must therefore have very good reasons for restricting it by law."
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Holocaust denial (general)
La Libre Belgique - Belgium | Tuesday, 2. May 2006
François de Smet, the vice president of the Brussels-based Movement against racism, anti-semitism and xenophobia (MRAX), asserts that revisionism is one of the worst forms of racism. "A genocide is a massacre unlike any other because it is the product of a deliberately planned policy to exterminate a people, and is therefore always based on a xenophobic ideology. One cannot fight racism without a constant reminder of what it leads to in its terminal phase: » more
François de Smet, the vice president of the Brussels-based Movement against racism, anti-semitism and xenophobia (MRAX), asserts that revisionism is one of the worst forms of racism. "A genocide is a massacre unlike any other because it is the product of a deliberately planned policy to exterminate a people, and is therefore always based on a xenophobic ideology. One cannot fight racism without a constant reminder of what it leads to in its terminal phase: the physical annihilation of the other because he is the other. This is why revisionism amounts to a legitimate restriction on freedom of expression: by allowing someone, in the future, to freely accept or deny the existence of the genocide of the Jews, Tutsis and Armenians inevitably helps justify, indirectly, the ideology that allowed these massacres to occur."
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The Irving trial in Vienna
Kristeligt Dagblad - Denmark | Monday, 16. January 2006
In the course of the next few months, the British revisionist David Irving will go on trial in Austria. He faces up to 10 years ... » more
In the course of the next few months, the British revisionist David Irving will go on trial in Austria. He faces up to 10 years in prison for denying the Holocaust. Michael Bach Henriksen, head of the cultural desk, says he should be acquitted in the name of freedom of expression. "There are obvious parallels between this trial and another controversial case, namely that of Orhan Pamuk in Turkey. Officially, the Turks never committed genocide resulting in the deaths of up to a million Armenians during the First World War. Pamuk questions this official version of history and says it was indeed genocide. He is entitled to defy the official version of history. And so is Irving. No matter how crazy or distorted his views are, he's entitled to express them. The only thing achieved by imprisoning those who deny the Holocaust is to make martyrs of extremist groups."
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The Times - United Kingdom | Friday, 20. January 2006
Columnist Ben Macintyre calls upon Austria to release the revisionist British historian David Irving from a jail where he has been held since his arrest ... » more
Columnist Ben Macintyre calls upon Austria to release the revisionist British historian David Irving from a jail where he has been held since his arrest in November on charges of denying the Holocaust. "The trial of Irving, due to start next month, risks saving him from the intellectual oblivion he and his views so richly deserve. Before the Austrian police arrested him, he was a fringe academic addressing a group of loopy far-right radicals wearing silly hats in a basement in Vienna. Now there is a real danger that he will become a martyr for the extreme Right. (...) Let Irving go. He is a blip, a tiny spot beyond the outer edges of rational debate that has attracted unwarranted attention. He has a right to be wrong ; and once he is at liberty, we can all exercise our own inalienable right to ignore him."
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Main focus of Tuesday, 21. February 2006
An Austrian court sentenced the British historian David Irving to three years in prison on Monday, February 20 for denying the Holocaust during several lectures ... » more
An Austrian court sentenced the British historian David Irving to three years in prison on Monday, February 20 for denying the Holocaust during several lectures and a press interview he gave in Austria in 1989. He had been wanted on an arrest warrant ever since and was arrested last November during a visit to Austria. He pleaded guilty in court, asserting that he now acknowledged the existence of the Nazi's gas chambers.
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Der Standard - Austria | Thursday, 21. December 2006
An Austrian court of appeals agreed to allow convicted British Holocaust denier David Irving to serve the remainder of his jail sentence on probation. Irving ... » more
An Austrian court of appeals agreed to allow convicted British Holocaust denier David Irving to serve the remainder of his jail sentence on probation. Irving has been released and wants to travel to Britain. Michael Simoner criticises the decision because, after his trial and conviction, Irving had repeated his doubts about the Third Reich's organised mass extermination of Jewish people. "Maybe we should just be happy to be rid of this icon to Holocaust deniers. The unexpected (and controversial) mitigation of the sentence leaves a bad aftertaste. Austria's Holocaust denial law is in danger of being undermined by lenient sentencing. Hitler salutes and the Horst-Wessel song have become harmless crimes. In future it will be more difficult to apply laws against the reactivation of Nazi activities in Austria."
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France
Neue Zürcher Zeitung - Switzerland | Friday, 16. December 2005
Marc Zitzmann reports on an appeal made by a group of French historians, including Jean-Pierre Azema, Pierre Nora, Pierre Vidal-Naquet and Michel Winock, for the French state to refrain from intervening in historical issues. They call for for the repeal of a law which rules that the positive aspects of colonialism be taught in schools, along with three other laws. "Each of these laws pertains to the treatment of historical events: » more
Marc Zitzmann reports on an appeal made by a group of French historians, including Jean-Pierre Azema, Pierre Nora, Pierre Vidal-Naquet and Michel Winock, for the French state to refrain from intervening in historical issues. They call for for the repeal of a law which rules that the positive aspects of colonialism be taught in schools, along with three other laws. "Each of these laws pertains to the treatment of historical events: namely the criminal prosecution of the denial of the Shoah, recognition of the genocide of the Armenians, and the classification of slavery and slave trading as a crime against humanity. History is neither a religion with irrefutable dogmas nor a moral issue under which actions are praised or condemned, nor is it a legal issue," they point out in their appeal.
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Le Figaro - France | Thursday, 22. December 2005
"More than two months after the controversy broke out over the 'positive' effects of colonisation, and the official discomfort over the bicentennary of Austerlitz, about twenty of ... » more
"More than two months after the controversy broke out over the 'positive' effects of colonisation, and the official discomfort over the bicentennary of Austerlitz, about twenty of the most prominent French historians have decided to break their silence," writes Jacques de Saint-Victor, referring to a petition entitled, 'Freedom for history!'. "This stance-taking attests to the deep sense of unease that has been incubating in the historical community for several years now. Driven by the best intentions in the world, the French lawmaker has in effect acquired a taste for legislating in the historical domain." In the journalist's view, "memory is becoming increasingly something that involves setting forth demands, lodging legal complaints. Indeed, something full of hatred. Nothing is more unhealthy than this, for if no one is responsible for his ancestors, they are, on the other hand, accountable for the degree of hatred that they pass down to future generations."
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Le Monde - France | Thursday, 18. May 2006
The French parliament is set to vote on Thursday, May 18 on a bill that makes it a crime to deny the 1915 Armenian genocide. In ... » more
The French parliament is set to vote on Thursday, May 18 on a bill that makes it a crime to deny the 1915 Armenian genocide. In an interview with Sophie Shihab, Halil Berktay, the first Turkish historian living in Turkey to have recognised this atrocity, believes adopting such a law would be counter-productive. "Any long-term resolution of this question is contingent on Turkey's democratisation. The denial of reality is a problem that is part of the tragedy of Turkish society. It must be overcome in Turkey. ... It is not the job of politics to dictate knowledge. The experience of the 20th century should suffice to convince us as much. What we need are open, free and unrushed debates. ... There are grounds to fear that the Turkish parliament could end up adopting a counter-law making it a crime to acknowledge genocide. There is at present a virulent nationalist, anti-European wave in Turkey. These forces would be delighted to see Europe reject Turkey's membership bid."
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Le Jeudi - Luxembourg | Friday, 20. October 2006
The writer from Luxembourg, Jean Portante, considers the adoption in France of a law condemning the denial of the Armenian genocide. "The situation bares a ... » more
The writer from Luxembourg, Jean Portante, considers the adoption in France of a law condemning the denial of the Armenian genocide. "The situation bares a strange resemblance to that of the debate around the advantages of French colonisation where many voices in France were raised to condemn the political world accused of rewriting French History through law when such a task should befall historians. ... This is rather the sentiment that spread over Turkey last week, where intellectuals are far from falling victim to blinkered thinking regarding the matter. Little by little, renowned historians and writers are trying to convince the country that there is a lot to be gained from unveiling a dark page of their history that occurred just before the birth of the Republic. The initiative of French members of Parliament bothers them, in so far as the risk is being run that consideration be replaced by emotion rather than reason."
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Italy
Corriere della Sera - Italy | Tuesday, 23. January 2007
Last week, Clemente Mastella, Italian Minister of Justice, announced the deposition of a government bill aimed at turning Holocaust denial into a crime against the ... » more
Last week, Clemente Mastella, Italian Minister of Justice, announced the deposition of a government bill aimed at turning Holocaust denial into a crime against the law in Italy. One hundred and fifty left-wing and right-wing intellectuals have signed a petition opposing this idea. The journalist and writer Dario Fertillo examines this debate and considers that historical truth cannot be decided with a law. "'State historical truth', this dry and brutal definition goes straight to the heart of the Minister of Justice Clemente Mastella with his idea of a law for punishing those who deny the holocaust. ... The path that the Minister and the Prodi government plan to follow is of course paved with good intentions, but leads to hell. It is one thing to condemn revisionist theories that encourage violence and racist hatred. It is something quite different to go beyond already existing laws that suffice to take criminal behaviour to court."
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La Repubblica - Italy | Tuesday, 30. January 2007
The historian and writer Agostino Giovagnoli considers the proposal presented by the Italian Minister of Justice, Clemente Mastella, for a law allowing the prosecution of ... » more
The historian and writer Agostino Giovagnoli considers the proposal presented by the Italian Minister of Justice, Clemente Mastella, for a law allowing the prosecution of negationists. "Over the past few days, 150 historians agreed to refuse the adoption of a judicial sanction of negationism. It is impossible not to compare this bill to the text against racism that has just been approved by the last Council of ministers. It is in the name of freedom of expression that the historians rejected this text ... . However, the distinction between negationism and anti-Semitism, difficult in theory, is virtually impossible in practice. Thus the question no longer concerns freedom of expression, but the best-adapted way to thwart anti-Semitism."
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Holocaust denial and Islam
Neue Zürcher Zeitung - Switzerland | Thursday, 19. January 2006
Over the past few weeks, the Iranian president has publicly expressed his doubts about the Holocaust. There are many who harbour such doubts in the ... » more
Over the past few weeks, the Iranian president has publicly expressed his doubts about the Holocaust. There are many who harbour such doubts in the Arab world, literary critic Fakhri Saleh writes. Most Arab revisionists had adopted the theories "of Western authors like Roger Garaudy, David Irving and Robert Faurisson, however there are also Arab historians who are doing their own work in the field of Western Holocaust research... Admittedly, even an impartial observer can't simply dismiss the connections between the suffering of the Palestinians and the widespread, virtually reflex-like denial of the Holocaust in the Arab world. The Arabs, and with them the Palestinians, should not close their eyes to the annihilation of the Jews. And it's certainly possible that a permanent peaceful solution, the withdrawal from occupied areas in Jordan and the creation of a viable Palestinian state could bring about a marked change in the way Arab politicians, intellectuals and the media regard the Holocaust."
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