Ian_Lee Posted February 22, 2006 at 12:46 AM Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 at 12:46 AM A Vienna Court has just sentenced British Historian David Irving to 3-year prison because he had made two speeches in Austria that denied the existence of Holocaust. Now seven countries in Europe have legislated laws to put anyone who dares have the gut to say that Holocaust never existed behind bar. Isn't such draconian law a clear violation of Freedom of Speech? I can understand such law applies to former Nazi or Skinhead though it still clearly is in breach of freedom of speech. But to apply such law onto a British academic is too far off. And to make loud outcry when the Iranian President also doubted the Holocaust is totally outrageous. While the European press feel that their Freedom of Speech is under siege after the Moslem World attacks the Danish media on lampooning Prophet Mohammad, the European court is doing exactly the same thing to restrict freedom of speech to their fellow citizens. Well, Tokyo Mayor Ishihara Shintaro is lucky. Even though he repeat4edly denied that Nanking Masacre had ever happened, I bet he would never be thrown into jail like Mr. Irving is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted February 22, 2006 at 12:54 AM Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 at 12:54 AM existence of Holocaust. lampooning Prophet Mohammad denied that Nanking Masacre had ever happened Even for you, Ian, that's got to be a record number of controversial keywords crammed into one post. Do you want a prize? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quest Posted February 22, 2006 at 01:03 AM Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 at 01:03 AM Protesters said 3 years not enough, should be 10. Japan needs a law like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian_Lee Posted February 22, 2006 at 01:10 AM Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 at 01:10 AM I would say that the European Court does something that CCP dares not do -- put a historian behind bar for saying taboo. Zhongshan University History professor Dr. Yuan is more lucky than Dr. Irving. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlo Posted February 22, 2006 at 04:30 AM Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 at 04:30 AM Is shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre freedom of speech? I think the idea is that while you are free to say what you want, you should also be held responsible for the consequences. Words (especially from teachers or other public figures) can have tangible consequences, like mob violence. Europeans are historically more sensitive to this issue with regard to neo-Nazis, so there are harsh laws in some countries against Holocaust denial. But inasmuch as a cartoon can be shown to incite hatred against minorities in Europe, IMHO it would go beyond the accepted boundaries of "freedom of speech". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quest Posted February 22, 2006 at 11:53 AM Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 at 11:53 AM I think banning his works is acceptable because they incite hatred and hurt some people's feelings, but putting him behind bars is overdoing it. I am sure the boundaries of "freedom of speech" are wider than that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted February 22, 2006 at 12:35 PM Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 at 12:35 PM As I understand it, he hasn't been jailed for inciting hatred - he's been jailed for denying the truth of the holocaust. I suspect if you read through his work he will be very careful to avoid inciting hatred of any sort, as that would have been an even quicker route to academic oblivion than the one he chose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HashiriKata Posted February 22, 2006 at 02:09 PM Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 at 02:09 PM inciting hatred of any sort [...] would have been an even quicker route to academic oblivion than the one he chose.It's also likely to be the other way round: in order not to fall into oblivion, some academics choose the controversial route. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yingguoguy Posted February 22, 2006 at 02:43 PM Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 at 02:43 PM The guy went back to Austria, where there was a warrant out for his arrest, to talk at a far-right meeting. He was daring the authorities to arrest him, and he can't blame the authorities for making the point clearly that this was unacceptable. This law should apply far more to a historian than a skin-head. In the trial in England a few years back, his book was shown to contain all kinds of willful inaccuracies, but it could easily be read by said skin-head as being a genuine authoritative work. He had presumable spent much time looking through archives working out how to distort, omit, miscontextualize and fabricate evidence to support his claims. This will only cause skin-heads to feel legitimized in their views and encourage far right groups. I'm not a fan of these holocaust denying laws. I don't like the idea that the holocaust should be protected in a way that the Rwanda genocide or the Nanjing massacre aren't. It would be much better legally to have some law in which covered all gross distortion of history for political ends. But many of the countries that have enacted these laws were either responsible for or deeply affected by Nazism, and as such, having such laws on the books are a good way to indicate clearly the remorse and rejection of such ideas is deep and heartfelt. Arguably, Japan enacting such a law would send a clear and welcome message to China and Korea, even if from a theoretical, legal perspective it's not the best way of balancing freedom of speech against distortion of history. Ian, are you seriously suggesting that if a Chinese citizen toured China giving lectures and publishing books saying that the Nanjing massacre never took place, the Chinese government would take no action. (Okay he'd be ripped to pieces by the crowd before the police had arrived, but that's not my point). Dr Yuan said, for example, that the burning of the Summer Palace may have resulted from mistakes made by the Qing dynasty. If I recall correctly the Qing detained (executed?) British envoys under a flag of truce. Similarly the Boxer Rebellion was mishandled attempt by the Empress Dowager to get rid of the foreign powers. They are hardly contraversial statements outside of China, yet the CPP was able to close the paper with no difficulty. They cannot be compared with a denial of genocide. I've also had Chinese people say to me, in all apparent seriousness, that the Hiroshima/Nagasaki atomic bombs were never dropped. It seems every country has its idiots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lugubert Posted February 22, 2006 at 04:07 PM Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 at 04:07 PM Try AN ITALIAN judge has ordered a priest to appear in court this month to prove that Jesus Christ existed. A Pentecostal preacher in Sweden who hatespeeched gays, was prosecuted, but acquitted. Lots of difficult questions here. In a course book in Religious studies at my university, the author addressed people who didn't "love God" (by which he must have meant his God) with "The Devil take you. ... You are not worth your salt." I, being an atheist, complained, despite not believing in the Devil - either - but was told that I was the only one to have complained (so, presumably I should shut up). That was two years ago, and I'm still mad at them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted February 22, 2006 at 05:00 PM Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 at 05:00 PM I don't like the idea that the holocaust should be protected in a way that the Rwanda genocide or the Nanjing massacre aren't. But perhaps they should be (along with Darwinism, perhaps). While from one point of view all speech should be free, I find myself inclined to say that some lies are odious enough to be banned. The trouble is, who does the banning . . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian_Lee Posted February 22, 2006 at 06:40 PM Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 at 06:40 PM I don't think that the denial by Mr. Irving on the Holocaust is comparable to the act of yelling fire in a crowded cinema. When Mr. Irving said that the Holocaust didn't exist, the year was 1989 -- 44 years after the end of WWII. Nazi was all gone. His statement could not incite any reignitng of neo-nazi movement. Moreover, since then he has rescinded his statement and admiited that Holocaust did happen and reiterated that his 1989 statement was merely his personal opinion. Moreover, Austria only legislated the law to put anyone claiming Holocaist didn't exist behind bars in 1992. So here is the question: (1) Should someone be held responsible for his personal opinion expressed 17 years ago? Should he be held responsible for a statement that he has rescinded? (2) Can the law be retroactive to hold someone who expressed an opinion at the time it was legal to do so? I don't agree with the opinion that academics should be held more responsible than the skinheads. Actually it is quite natural that there will be different opinions articulated in the academic circle on any subject. To refute his argument, it should be routed through extensive debate based on ample evidence in the academic circle. To put him in court is to politicize the issue and make him a martyr. It is no different from the medieval kangaroo court set up by the Church. And clearly it is a breach of the freedom of speech. And to argue that there can absolutely be no argument about the Holocaust is to establish the absolute truth. But if absolute truth can be applied to Holocaust, why can't no absolute truth be established about the Nanking Massacre? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian_Lee Posted February 22, 2006 at 06:56 PM Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 at 06:56 PM Yingguoren: If a foreigner, like Mr. Irving, toured China and BS everywhere like Ishihara did that Nanking Massacre didn't happen, most likely Beijing will send him right to the airport next morning. But Beijing will most likely not put him behind bars like the Vienna Court did to Mr. Irving. Moreover, I hold Europe on a higher standard in terms of freedom of speech since it has accused China on serious violation of human rights. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlo Posted February 23, 2006 at 02:54 AM Report Share Posted February 23, 2006 at 02:54 AM When Mr. Irving said that the Holocaust didn't exist, the year was 1989 -- 44 years after the end of WWII. Nazi was all gone. His statement could not incite any reignitng of neo-nazi movement.[/quoteIt would seem the Neo-nazis in Europe are alive and well, and Mr Irving is their poster boy. Apparently the situation in some European countries is rather worrying. We can debate whether turning him into a martyr is a good idea, but that is a different issue (logically, for him to be a martyr it means that the the Neo-nazis are not 'gone'). Academic opinions are of course very welcome. The deliberate distortion of scientific reasoning to justify criminal and violent acts is not. I'm not commenting on the Irving case so much as I haven't read the books, so I don't really know exactly how strong the case against him is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yingguoguy Posted February 23, 2006 at 05:53 AM Report Share Posted February 23, 2006 at 05:53 AM Ian, I suggest you look here. This site contains full transcripts of the English trial that David Irving lost in 2000. These are available to anyone who has an interest this case and they can make up their own mind as to whether justice was done. Note that in this case it was David Irving who was suing a professor Lipstadt for calling him a holocaust denier, and hence he bought this defeat on himself. Libel laws in England are tough, but he was judged to be a pro-Nazi holocaust denier. He couldn't have been prosectued himself under English law, but he chose to go to a country knowing full well that he was in breach of their laws. Part of the reason that the holocaust happened is that Jews have always been viewed with mistrust in parts of Europe. Consider the fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which accusses them as a race that is secretly plotting to control the world. In short, they're seen as evil by anti-Semetic people. Denying the holocaust not only denies the wrong that was doing them, it reinforces the impression that they are evil by implying that the holocaust is just a Jewish plot to control public opinion. It also libels the millions of relatives of Jews killed in the camps in the most offensive way possible. That is why it is considered so odious and is not tolerated in Western society. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted February 23, 2006 at 06:24 AM Report Share Posted February 23, 2006 at 06:24 AM Nazi was all gone. His statement could not incite any reignitng of neo-nazi movement What does the prefix 'neo' mean? It means 'new'. Think about that To refute his argument, it should be routed through extensive debate based on ample evidence in the academic circle. It has been. And he's been chucked in jail too. 双赢 situation, if you ask me, neither of them for Irving. But if absolute truth can be applied to Holocaust, why can't no absolute truth be established about the Nanking Massacre? It can be. Did you have a point? We can debate whether turning him into a martyr is a good idea (that quote from Carlo). Given the way he claimed to have changed his views, I'd say he's more of an embarrassment than a martyr. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trevelyan Posted February 23, 2006 at 07:16 AM Report Share Posted February 23, 2006 at 07:16 AM Many countries have laws restricting hate speech, libel, slander. Most of these restrictions define criminal liability by focusing on the intent of the speech, rather than its content. Nothing to see here. Let's move along and let this odious toad of a man spin his wheels in prison for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian_Lee Posted February 23, 2006 at 07:22 AM Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2006 at 07:22 AM yingguoguy: The 2000 libel lawsuit that Irving was a civil lawsuit. But now Irving is put behind bar in a criminal lawsuit owing to his BS that he made seventeen years ago in Austria. The civil lawsuit is between two parties while the criminal lawsuit is between the state and the individual. The State is fearing to hear a view from an individual that it feels disgusting. So it uses force to lock him up. In doing so, what is the difference between it and Hilter? To put anyone behind bar merely because he thinks or speaks differently from the mainstream sets an extremely dangerous precedent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted February 23, 2006 at 07:29 AM Report Share Posted February 23, 2006 at 07:29 AM The State is fearing to hear a view from an individual that it feels disgusting. So it uses force to lock him up. In doing so, what is the difference between it and Hilter? Weak. Try the invasion of large chunks of Europe, the slaughter of innocents, etc. To put anyone behind bar merely because he thinks or speaks differently from the mainstream sets an extremely dangerous precedent. You think these laws pass easily, without debate and consideration? Even now, when they're in place and have been for years, they are under constant scrutiny. Any similar laws (highly unlikely) will face the same. Ian, there are good arguments to be made that Irving should not have been jailed for what he has done. However, you aren't making them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian_Lee Posted February 23, 2006 at 07:31 AM Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2006 at 07:31 AM trevelyn: Most countries do have certain restriction on freedom of speech. However, the hate crime that you mention has strict limitation. Only if the speech incites violent act against an individual or group can the offendant be convicted. For slander and libel, the state is seldom a party in the lawsuit. And you don't get the point. The controversy is not about Irving (IMO he is as despicable as Koizumi) but on freedom of speech. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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