Zundel and fascism
This trial of Zundel is completely preposterous! Imprisoning someone because they deny something happened!! This is soo similar to the "Though Police" its disheartening. And then how can Germany criticize other nations for human right abuses if they jail someone for his views! This is not spreading hate, this is having a false view of history. But the idea the government gets to decide what view of history to back is very dangerous (I'm not suggesting theirs is wrong, but look at Japan's constant denial of it's treatment of conquered territory in China during WWII). Deciding history and having a thought police is WAY too much power for a government and it's very sad this law is even on the books. Imagine if the crazy right wing in the US wins more power, they could enact the same law for Resurrection deniers, or atheist etc! It's completely absurd. I wouldn't even put a similar law for evolution deniers.
posted by Eddie | 11:36 AM
8 Comments:
Try this for instance.
I think that speading hate laws are a very grey area. Certainly anything that incites violience against someone else is criminal since it infringes upon another right to liberty (or even life), such as contract killings. But what is written in this and other articles is that it is a crime to deny the holocaust. The idea that the belief or disbelief of an event makes a person a criminal is insane! This is the realm of the Theorcray not a modern democracy. A person dening the holocaust is an idiot, not a criminal. The idea that you could accedentally run someone over with your car and go to jail for manslaughter for the same amount of time as someone who said, "The holocaust never happened" leaves me speechless (mostly because this is in Germany not Syria).
I hope it's just poor reporting. But I've had conversation with non-north American's and some say this law is justified!?! And these are smart athiests! They think that free-speech has limits! I assume it's the age of the culture. Either way it's wrong. Free speech means hearding what you don't want hear.
The Americans wouldn't be able to prosecute him for his site because the US takes the idea of free speech seriously. It's one of the few parts of the Bill of Rights that their government still respects.
They have magazines like Solder of Fortune where you can find ads offering killers-for-hire. Of course, it's still illegal to actually hire a contract killer and people have been prosecuted for doing so from that particular magazine.
The right to free speech won't protect you there because it's not the speech itself that's illegal. The "speech" of contracting out a hit is just evidence that you intended to have someone killed, and it's the intent to kill that's against the law.
But you must admit it is really a stetch to say that denying the holocaust is the same as a contract killing! As I said, I hope it's a reporting issue.
It's a big stretch that would never hold up in court, and the Americans wouldn't be able to prosecute him for exactly that reason. He's getting prosecuted in Germany, where they don't have the free speech protections of the US. The Germans claim jurisdiction because the site was available in Germany, even though it was hosted in the US.
Looks like Zundel isn't the only one having trouble with the thought police:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1877787,00.html
I still am in shcok that the Germans and the Austrians (from Kurt's link) have these laws!! Orwell must be doing turning in his grave! As Konrad said, even the idea that the Germans can get him because his site is available in Germany in insane! I wonder if the world will notice when the Chinese government starts doing things like this to it's disidents. How will the Germans/Austrians/UK (the fucking UK!!) claim the ethical high ground.
I never said we didn't have hate legislation and I'm also against most (if not all) of the exemptions. But saying something never happend or something happend differently that is publically accepted has nothing to do with hate.
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