Holocaust denier set to face court

ronbyrne2005

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3194360.stm

SeanW

Rotflmao

Can't believe they arreseted the guy for that. If it wasn't a case of PC censhorship gone too far, it would be just too funny.

And get the name of the animal welfare officer, Carola Ruff.

Man that was a hoot.

w66w66

In an act of solidarity newspapers all over Europe deliberately insult Muslims in the name of free speech, and then Austria goes and throws a historian in jail because his opinions are deemed to be offensive to the Jewish people.

This blatant act of hypocrisy will surely add to the strain on community relations with Muslims.

Captain Trips

The Corinthian wrote:

Source?

Piper, F., "The Number of Victims," in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp.,
Gutman, Yisrael, and Michael Berenbaum. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994. (Published in association with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.)

Needless to say, just because it was revised downwards still didn't mean it didn't happen per se, but even that examination of history is enough to get you in jail, even if you say it was 5.9 million, you are "diminishing" the period. Irving was of the opinion I think that it was entirely fabricated.

I don't think any reasonable person could refute the photgraphs of the camps and so on, just as the US and UK cannot deny the torture committed by their armies in the Iraq invasion as we see the photographs of it happening - and once again, people say it's bad but no action is really taken. This makes me think that the Germans and so on have been made feel guilty when they were probably clueless of the events of the generals and soldiers doing the killing, just as Americans and British are today clueless or distant to their armies torturing and killing. (Off topic, but I find it a useful analogy). It's justified these days though, for the war on terror, because that's different.

bonkey

A number of people have suggested these laws need to be revoked.

As a matter of interest, does anyone know when these laws were first brought into Austrian law?

jc

Hobbes

bonkey wrote:

A number of people have suggested these laws need to be revoked.

As a matter of interest, does anyone know when these laws were first brought into Austrian law?

jc

Not sure about Austrian but wiki seems to suggest that Switzerland brought a similar law in 1995.

Sir Oxman

bonkey wrote:

A number of people have suggested these laws need to be revoked.

As a matter of interest, does anyone know when these laws were first brought into Austrian law?

jc

From http://lipstadt.blogspot.com/2005/12/free-speech-and-laws-vs-holocaust_30.html

..."I pointed out that Austria's law was against minimization of the crimes of the Third Reich and had been instituted in the late 1940s. It was not, specifically a law against Holocaust denial."

I'll havre a further search later unless someone else finds another source.

Anyway, despite Irving's distasteful views (to me), I believe he should not have been jailed for an opinion. However, Austria and Germany were the two countries at the centre of the misdeeds of WWII so I can imagine they have 'mad' laws relating to the exterminations and open discussion of them.

But at the end of the day it's still a bad thing and is more ammo for extremist Islam.
Also, Austria is president of the EU at the moment...

fly_agaric

delah wrote:

But at the end of the day it's still a bad thing and is more ammo for extremist Islam...

Yeah, I can see it now...Behind the Evil West - THE JEW! - or did somebody use that one already?:rolleyes:

Zombrex

Freddie59 wrote:

While I support the fundamental of free speech, there is a huge gulf between a set of cartoons about a human being (not a God) and the premeditated deaths of six million people.:(

Only if the cartoons don't effect you. And only if you feel very strongly about holocaust deniers.

There are a lot of people in the world who consider the cartoons very offensive, but couldn't give two hoots if some idiot wants to say the holocaust didn't happen.

Personally I don't care if someone wants to insult Muhammad or if they want to say the holocaust didn't happen, but I recongise that both statements are going to offend different people. Neither should be illegal though

Sir Oxman

fly_agaric wrote:

Yeah, I can see it now...Behind the Evil West - THE JEW! - or did somebody use that one already?:rolleyes:

It's more the perceived double standards in Europe, though as we know, Austrian law was broken - whether that law is a good one or not is up for debate.

Sir Oxman

Wicknight wrote:

Only if the cartoons don't effect you. And only if you feel very strongly about holocaust deniers.

There are a lot of people in the world who consider the cartoons very offensive, but couldn't give two hoots if some idiot wants to say the holocaust didn't happen.

Personally I don't care if someone wants to insult Muhammad or if they want to say the holocaust didn't happen, but I recongise that both statements are going to offend different people. Neither should be illegal though

I agree.

Snickers Man

mike65 wrote:

"Merely invaded Poland..." it sounds almost benign. Ask the Poles about that.
.

Don't cut the quote off at the knees. I said 'merely invaded Poland to get their own country back'

Most of what the Germans took from Poland had been Germany prior to the first world war. As I said, even the moderate German politicians between the wars refused to accept Germany's borders as they were in 1939.

ISAW

Captain Trips wrote:

The French Revolution didn't result in the execution of nobles!
There was no systematic slaughter of native americans!
The SPanish COnqistadores didn't pillage South America!
The ROmans didn't throw Christians to the Lions in the Coliseum!!

I am obviously a dangerous criminal and should be jailed!!! I am a "SERIAL FALSIFYER OF HISTORY" (that's what they called Irving).

If anything, he is a martyr to the cause of reducing idiocy in law and government.

That is a stupid comment! Why? Because hiscory can indeed be revised. There is nothing wrong in rewriting it in the light of evidence. All the above comments about France America and the Conquistadores etc. can be disputed. Nobles were executed before the revolution so the revolution itself was not the genesis of executing them. No US government sat down and planned a final solution to the indian "problem" through mass execution. Some Spanish brought religion horses and good will to South america. All Romans were not anti Chriastian. Indeed within a few centuries christianity became the official religion of the empire.

I can accept that hte opinion of historians might differ based on interpretation of evidence but the court evidence is clear Irvine lied! He admitted he knew the holocaust had happened and he had accepted that in the early 1990s but he lied about it and continued to maintain it did not happen!

I can accept that some people believe the holocaust did not happen or that the earth was created 6000 years or so ago but when the evidence is looked into they have nowhere to stand. Even worse is when someone knows they are wrong but continues to lie about the truth. They are hypocrits! Irvine is one of them!

Furthermore Austria and Germany have law against holocaust denial. Irvine broke those laws!

Zombrex

Snickers Man wrote:

Don't cut the quote off at the knees. I said 'merely invaded Poland to get their own country back

And to eliminate the Polish people ....

HelterSkelter

Mike, are you going to add a similar banner to your signature now regarding this case as you seem so concerned with Denmark's laughable "struggle for freedom of speech"

ISAW

Captain Trips wrote:

Piper, F., "The Number of Victims," in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp.,
Gutman, Yisrael, and Michael Berenbaum. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994. (Published in association with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.)

Needless to say, just because it was revised downwards still didn't mean it didn't happen per se, but even that examination of history is enough to get you in jail, even if you say it was 5.9 million, you are "diminishing" the period. Irving was of the opinion I think that it was entirely fabricated.

Yes Irvine denied the holocaust happened. But the first step is to revise the details and say something like "six million jews did not die" . Note it might be 7 or 5.9 but this is not stated. A negitive comment is.

I don't think any reasonable person could refute the photgraphs of the camps and so on, just as the US and UK cannot deny the torture committed by their armies in the Iraq invasion as we see the photographs of it happening - and once again, people say it's bad but no action is really taken.

the US/UK do not plan to kill the entire population of Iraq so that US and UK citizens can inhabit the country. Nor do they claim that all muslims or all Iraquis are evil and lesser people and must be exterminated!

Action is being taken! Many countries refused to take part in the invasion in the first place. Debate is ongoing about torture and the US and UK governments have had changes of position. Death camps however where not planned.

This makes me think that the Germans and so on have been made feel guilty when they were probably clueless of the events of the generals and soldiers doing the killing, just as Americans and British are today clueless or distant to their armies torturing and killing.

This isnt true either! The Nurnberg laws were passed before WWII. People were well aware of Hitlers position on the jews and gypsies and slavs. It was written in Mein Kampf. The knowledge of "undermenchen" and the actual legislation against them was there for Germans to know about.

Fair enough the Patriot Act is a similar type of infringement on people but it nowhere even approaches the sectarian institutionalisation of the Nurnberg laws.

(Off topic, but I find it a useful analogy). It's justified these days though, for the war on terror, because that's different.

It isnt justified but it also is not nearly as extreme.

The Corinthian

ISAW wrote:

That is a stupid comment! Why? Because hiscory can indeed be revised. There is nothing wrong in rewriting it in the light of evidence.

The problem with the issue of the historical Holocaust is that it actually cannot be rewritten even in the light of evidence. You even manage to contradict yourself by arguing the above point then criticizing it:

But the first step is to revise the details and say something like "six million jews did not die" . Note it might be 7 or 5.9 but this is not stated. A negitive comment is.

Leaving anyone with the audacity of questioning even part of the accepted history as being the thin edge of the wedge of Holocaust denial. It does not seem to matter if they have evidence or not.

The best example of how hysterical this sacred cow of the West has become is from a comment I heard during the commemorations of the liberation of Auschwitz. The Sky News commentator mentioned how the Holocaust claimed the lives of “six million Jews and five or six million others”. What would have happened to him had he said “five or six million Jews”? There’s no doubt that he would have lost his job and it is also possible that he would have been branded an anti-Semite. There’s something deeply fscked up in any Society that has become so irrational as that.

And then we accuse the Muslims of being irrational in their reaction to the Mohammed cartoons. Go figure.

Captain Trips

ISAW wrote:

That is a stupid comment! Why? Because hiscory can indeed be revised. There is nothing wrong in rewriting it in the light of evidence.

No, you are missing the point: History CANNOT be revised on this matter. And I am not suggesting at all that magical evidence will turn up and it will all have been a bad dream - not at all. The LAW is that you CANNOT introduce ANY QUESTION of ANY PART, REGARDLESS of the evidence you may have for only this one single episode of history.

There are so many different interpretations of history by thousands of scholars, and they are all free to do it, to think about things and to hopefully give us new perspectives on why e.g., things happened. This is a doctrine shoved down your throat by threat of imprisonment, and is an offence to what I would expect, every free thinking individual.

IT IS STILL ILLEGAL is the point I am making. You cannot think about this part of history - everything else is fair game for historians. The very crux of this issue is not that it's right or wrong, but that it is ILLEGAL to THINK. You *must* by force LAW and threat of imprisonment accept the official version of this one historical episode.

You can rewrite every single part of history, you can make a fortune off of the Bible and Da Vinci like Dan Brown, you can say Ghengis Khan liked to cook lamb chops and didn't go on a rampage, but you cannot ever ever amen say anything that could be interpreted as you not accepting any part of the Holocaust - that is written in stone doctrine, and to even wonder about it, is illegal.

Where is free speech now? Why is it not law that it is illegal to deny any other part of history? WHy is it not illegal to deny the 10 million Russians the Nazis killed? What about them? Does no-one care about them? Why not the 5 million Christians? WHy no law for them?

SpAcEd OuT

I don't agree with him but to be jailed for having an opnion is dangerously facist not matter how offensive.

mike65

HelterSkelter wrote:

Mike, are you going to add a similar banner to your signature now regarding this case as you seem so concerned with Denmark's laughable "struggle for freedom of speech"

"Denmark's laughable "struggle for freedom of speech" eh? The Danish government did'nt start any campaign ordinary people did, freedom of speech means the right for Irving to spout clap-trap. Danes know that too. Is that laughable?

Mike.

HelterSkelter

No, I agree with freedom of speech. I just think it's laughable to suggest that Denmark are involved in a "struggle for the freedom of speech".

mike65

They are'nt by design only by accident- the justification put foward by the ed of that paper was clearly lame.

Mike.

The Corinthian

SpAcEd OuT wrote:

I don't agree with him but to be jailed for having an opnion is dangerously facist not matter how offensive.

I assume that what you were trying to articulate there was that you “don't agree with him, but to be jailed for having an onion is dangerously Fascist no matter how offensive”. Does that mean that Stalin was a Fascist too? Or Castro? What is Fascism?

I do think that part of the problem with this issue is that people are too brainwashed into speaking in clichés without actually understanding what they’re discussing.

mike65 wrote:

"Denmark's laughable "struggle for freedom of speech" eh? The Danish government did'nt start any campaign ordinary people did, freedom of speech means the right for Irving to spout clap-trap. Danes know that too. Is that laughable?

I agree. It’s unfair to blame Denmark for what has occurred in Austria any more than it would be fair to blame Ireland. If anything it is a failing on the part of the West and Europe in particular to be consistent where it comes to free speech.

ISAW

The Corinthian wrote:

The problem with the issue of the historical Holocaust is that it actually cannot be rewritten even in the light of evidence.

Yes it could. If there was no evidence of the holocaust ever happening then one could assert that it did not happen. But there happens to be overwhelming evidence that if did happen! What might be revised however is whether somebody did the crimes they were accused of or whether somebody else did them. this sort of revision is important because they might try someone like "The Butcher of Lyon" and find out they they have the wrong man. However that is nt to deny there actually was a "Butcher of Lyon" or similar person elsewhere.

You even manage to contradict yourself by arguing the above point then criticizing it:

How do I manage to contradict myself? Where is the contradiction? I point out the tactics of holocaust deniers. Just as in the case of Irvine, the classic tactic is to pick specific details which are open to question but at the same time to push a line that because of minor nit picking details the whole picture is untrue. As it happens in many cases the nit picking details are not open to question because the denier already knows thet the holocaust happened but tries to give the impression that he really has an open mind and actually believes that it didnt happen! Irvine believed it happened but he lied and claimed it didnt!

Leaving anyone with the audacity of questioning even part of the accepted history as being the thin edge of the wedge of Holocaust denial. It does not seem to matter if they have evidence or not.

Wrong! If someone questioned part of accepted history but began by stating "I believe the WWII holocaust happened. I believe it was the planned extermination of Gypsies slavs and jews by the nazis. However I think that the number of gypsies murdered by the nazis are actually higher and the jews are actually lower..." and if they went on to give a basis for this e.g. that Gypsies deserve political and economic support just as the jews have got it, then I think they would be taken seriously.

As it happens deniers never praise jews slavs or gypsies. It sticks in their craw. They cant do it!

The best example of how hysterical this sacred cow of the West has become is from a comment I heard during the commemorations of the liberation of Auschwitz. The Sky News commentator mentioned how the Holocaust claimed the lives of “six million Jews and five or six million others”. What would have happened to him had he said “five or six million Jews”? There’s no doubt that he would have lost his job and it is also possible that he would have been branded an anti-Semite. There’s something deeply fscked up in any Society that has become so irrational as that.

Oddly your "best example" is based on something that didnt happen since he didnt say "five or six million jews".

And then we accuse the Muslims of being irrational in their reaction to the Mohammed cartoons. Go figure.

There is a world of difference between profanity sacrelidge or blastphemy and actually planning to exterminate members of a whole religion and then actulaay carrying it out.

The Corinthian

ISAW wrote:

Yes it could. If there was no evidence of the holocaust ever happening then one could assert that it did not happen. But there happens to be overwhelming evidence that if did happen! What might be revised however is whether somebody did the crimes they were accused of or whether somebody else did them. this sort of revision is important because they might try someone like "The Butcher of Lyon" and find out they they have the wrong man. However that is nt to deny there actually was a "Butcher of Lyon" or similar person elsewhere.

We’re not even discussing the issue of whether it occurred or not - how about some of the details, such as the numbers involved?

Oh, wait, that’s just the thin edge of the wedge of Holocaust denial.

How do I manage to contradict myself? Where is the contradiction? I point out the tactics of holocaust deniers.

Even if there’s evidence? And you don’t see a contradiction there?

Wrong! If someone questioned part of accepted history but began by stating "I believe the WWII holocaust happened. I believe it was the planned extermination of Gypsies slavs and jews by the nazis. However I think that the number of gypsies murdered by the nazis are actually higher and the jews are actually lower..." and if they went on to give a basis for this e.g. that Gypsies deserve political and economic support just as the jews have got it, then I think they would be taken seriously.

I think you’re actually living in a fantasy World if you honestly think you could publicly argue something like “it was five million Jews, not six, who died” and not get lambasted as an anti-Semite, regardless of whatever evidence you presented.

Regardless of your motivations, you too would be accused of the same thin edge of the wedge tactics that you’re suggesting of Irving. And this is before we consider the fact that with or without evidence you would be arrested in a number of European countries.

As it happens deniers never praise jews slavs or gypsies. It sticks in their craw. They cant do it!

What’s your point? That Nazis don’t like Jews, Slaves or Gypsies? Thanks for the insight, but that’s not actually what we’re discussing here.

Oddly your "best example" is based on something that didnt happen since he didnt say "five or six million jews".

My example was meant to highlight that had he done so he would have lost his job and possibly also branded a Nazi. Tell me with a straight face that that would not have happened.

Given there is no problem being ambiguous about the other five or six million Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals et al, the question must be asked why this situation is still supposed to make sense?

There is a world of difference between profanity sacrelidge or blastphemy and actually planning to exterminate members of a whole religion and then actulaay carrying it out.

Sure there is but no one here is talking about the extermination of anyone.

What is in discussion is the limitations to free speech and how the West is as happy to informally or even legally refuse any dissention and offence to certain topics, then not accept when other cultures do likewise.

Freddie59

Hobbes wrote:

Then you have no idea what free speech is.

Ah - our resident expert on free speech.:rolleyes: My apologies.

Freddie59

Wicknight wrote:

Only if the cartoons don't effect you. And only if you feel very strongly about holocaust deniers.

There are a lot of people in the world who consider the cartoons very offensive, but couldn't give two hoots if some idiot wants to say the holocaust didn't happen.

Personally I don't care if someone wants to insult Muhammad or if they want to say the holocaust didn't happen, but I recongise that both statements are going to offend different people. Neither should be illegal though

But one of them is under Austrian law. And that, as they say, is that.:)

SeanW

If someone is determined to go around spouting rubbish like "the holocaust is a jew conspiracy" or "it never happened, and the survivors are all liars, it's all fake, it's all an illusion" ...

I mean, if someone is dead set on trashing their credibility with this claptrap, why should we try to stop them?

The Corinthian

Freddie59 wrote:

But one of them is under Austrian law. And that, as they say, is that.:)

The "it just is" school of logic...

Given your capacity to reason in this argument, I can understand how you would favour such laws.

Freddie59

The Corinthian wrote:

The "it just is" school of logic...

Given your capacity to reason in this argument, I can understand how you would favour such laws.

Are you unable to articulate an argument without personal insults? Attack the post - not the poster. It seems to be a facet of your personality. You seem to have a problem with English. I didn't say I agreed with it - just that if it's the law, and you break it, then you must pay for it. Is that clear enough for you?