Should Holocaust Denial be decriminalised across the 14 countries where it still remains illegal?

This would be like making it illegal to believe in creationism, so even though those people just look like huge idiots, it’s still wrong to make it illegal for them.

I think it should still be a criminal offence. These people are dangerous, and their propaganda is closely related with anti-Semitism. It is not like creationism @Blackberry, because creationists do not seek the destruction of another race, they just make themselves look a bit silly.

@FireMadeFlesh Oh I see, I did not know they were actually dangerous people.

Its a thin line to tread… but seeing as millions of people in those countries died as a result, I can see why they want people who are denying the suffering of those countries to be punished.

Making it illegal to believe or not believe something is just stupid. However, I do admit that a large number (as in 99%+) of people who deny the Holocaust have violent tendancies to go along with it.

The problem here isn’t the denial of something that happened. It’s the behavior that tends to go with it. Criminalize the part that matters, which is the behavior. Don’t criminalize the acceptance or denial of history.

Germany lead the way in outlawing Holocaust denial because they thought that the State had the burden of maintaining its acknowledgment of guilt in order to try to keep such a thing from ever happening again. Just as here in the States it was necessary to pass a law forbidding a lunch counter to refuse to seat Black people, even though, rationally speaking, a private business should be allowed to chose its own customers.

Personally, I question the motives of anyone who wants to legalize Holocaust denial in Germany or Austria, because it is merely a disingenuous ploy to allow violent antisemitism to recrudesce.

No one is outlawing anyone’s beliefs. Die gedanken zein frei. What is being outlawed is the equivalent of yelling “fire” in a crowded theater.

By keeping it illegal, it stops the spread of these ludicrous “beliefs”. I have the word in quotes, because I think it is really just a disguise for Antisemitism.

There is no credible evidence that there was no Holocaust. All the non-believers do is ignore all the evidence that the Holocaust occurred and recycle tired old lies.

The people that you refer to as intelligent are Antisemitic. Just as Wagner, a genius composer, was and Henry Ford, a genius manufacturer, was. It diminishes them all.

@dpworkin , this is far from yelling fire. That is outlawed because it creates both a clear and present danger. Denying the holocaust does not do this. I also don’t see on what grounds you claim necessity to have a law outlawing racism in business practices.

For those of us who value freedom, particularly of expression, association, thought and body, we do not deny those freedoms to others merely because we despise them, otherwise we wouldn’t really believe in their merits.

I welcome those racists to speak up so that I may ridicule, shun and expose their falsities for what they are.

I see, so if your local bowling alley decided that it was a Whites Only establishment you would be fine with that?

@dpworkin there are plenty of places and areas in the US that are considered Black Only, even if that’s not governed by state law.

I wouldn’t care if a place said White Only or Black Only. It should be up to the person running the place and if they’re happy to turn their nose up at business then so be it.

@beautifulbobby193 Ummm…. did you not see the civil rights movement of the 1960s? The sit ins, the protests?

You actually just made an argument that civil rights is wrong.

Incredibly ignorant.

Decriminalize it. Keeping it illegal serves only to hide the problem and serves as nothing less than an affront to free speech.

Nope.

this is why it should remain illegal.

I didn’t know it was criminalized. Though I think these people are completely wrong, making beliefs (rather than actions) a crime is not productive.

No, I’m from Austria and there are good reasons for these laws.

In Austria there is a law against “Wiederbetätigung” (literally meaning “re-engaging”, as in re-engaging in national socialism), that outlaws activities such as denial of the holocaust or trying to form some party/militia/movement trying to bring up national socialism again or glorifying it. According to my knowledge this law was amongst other things implemented to protect the Austrian state against a resurgence of the Nazi government. After the war there was the possibility of Nazis getting back to power, this law prevents this case.

Of course this limits the freedom of speech in some cases, e.g. you can’t publicly deny that the Holocaust ever existed, but this is a rather small price to pay for some barrier that makes it impossible or very hard for right-wing nutjobs (unfortuantely still here nowadays) to come into power.

Also you have to consider that this law isn’t enforced very strictly. If you discuss the 2nd world war in a pub and somebody got a weird opinion, nothing will happen. But if you publish books and papers, or give speeches denying the holocaust, there’s a good chance you’ll get in trouble. And rightly so imo, since the only people denying or greatly downplaying the holocaust have some hidden agenda imo. They’re not trying to have a scientific discussion but trying to downplay the Holocaust to better the image of a racist totalitarian regime for political reasons..

@elmagico I do see how it being Austria vs. the US makes a difference.

Umm… “Does this illegality encroach on ones freedom of speech”

Who, exactly says that all countries in this world have freedom of speech? And who has the right to dictate what other countries do?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir
Yes, imo you definitely have to consider the European political situation.

Imo this isn’t really a breaching of the freedom of speech since the topic borders on incitement to ethnic or racial hatred.

Good wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung
Edit: It seems the anti holocaust denial law (at least in germany) was first brought into law because of severe antisemitic hate crimes in the 1950s.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung (german article, a bit more in depth)

@beautifulbobby193 “is there any evidence to back up their alternative theories”

Afaik, no. The right wing guys specializing in the denial in the holocaust call themselves “revisionists” or “history revisionists” and try to give their theories some fake academic/scientific pretense.
I only know of absurd made up facts like some Neonazi guy entering Ausschwitz as a visitor, taking samples and claiming that the samples proove that no gas ever came into contact with gas chamber walls. Mind you, the guy had absolutely no scientific education or academic credibility and his theories were rejected by the scientific community and in court cases.

@elmagico they never have any scientific education or academic credibility

Freedom of speech is not a global right….But it is a good way to get your ass killed in some countries.

@dpworkin No, I would not be fine with my bowling alley being white only. I would never set foot in there again.
Perhaps i’m in the extreme minority not wanting to control others to my liking.

No event in human history has been studied more thoroughly and carefully than the Holocaust. Thousands of thesis and dissertations papers have poured over mountains of data, from physical evidence and anecdotal testimony to captured German war documents. Virtually everyone with a PhD in History will stake their career on the fact that millions of Jews were systematically exterminated by Nazi Germany. One can no more “revise” this fact than one can revise the existence of gravity. Wannsee Conference records prove that Nazis planned the extermination of Jews as, “The Final Solution.” German concentration camp records prove that it was carried out.

Whenever we stand up to those who deny or minimize genocide we send a critical message to the world. As we continue to live in an age of genocide and ethnic cleansing, we must repel the broken ethics of our ancestors, or risk a dreadful repeat of past transgressions.

Holocaust deniers ply their mendacious poison everywhere, especially with young people on the Internet. Deniers seek to distort the truth in a way that promotes antagonism against the object of their hatred, or to deny the culpability of their ancestors and heroes. If we ignore them, they will twist the minds of countless young people, creating a new generation of those who deny the facts of the worst episode of genocide in history. Freedom of speech and the press is a symbol of a healthy society. Yet, since no crime in history is as heinous as the Holocaust, its memory must be accurately preserved, to protect our children and grandchildren.

Museums and mandatory public education are tools to dispel bigotry, especially racial and ethnic hatred. Books, plays, films and presentations can reinforce the veracity of past and present genocides. They help to tell the true story of the perpetrators of genocide; and they reveal the abject terror, humiliation and degradation resulting from blind prejudice. It is therefore essential that we disclose the factual brutality and horror of genocide, combating the deniers’ virulent, inaccurate historical revision. We must protect vulnerable future generations from making the same mistakes.

A world that continues to allow genocide requires ethical remediation. We must insist that religious, racial, ethnic, gender and orientation persecution is wrong; and that tolerance is our progeny’s only hope. Only through such efforts can we reveal the true horror of genocide and promote the triumphant spirit of humankind.

Charles Weinblatt
Author, “Jacob’s Courage”
http://jacobscourage.wordpress.com/

@cweinbl unfortunately, your post echoes so many. Jews. What about the millions of others that were killed? Including the disabled, blacks, various religions, gays, Gypsies, and so many others. Gypsies were right up there, part of the Final Solution, and with the percentage of population killed. And they never got an apology, let alone a homeland out of it.

It was not just the Jewish Holocaust. I wish people would stop trying to make it so.

More on point, remember that making an act of speech illegal is to support the idea of using violence to suppress speech. I know of some terrorists who would join in praise of such a move.
Want to accurately preserve the history of the holocaust? Let the idiots stand up and speak so they can publicly be exposed as liars.

@arpinum Politicians have been exposed as liars for many years, yet people continue to vote for them. If they are allowed to spread their message, there will be a minority of ignorant people who would join their cause. Making it illegal restricts public denial to the most hard-core, and makes the whole movement a lot smaller.

@Keysha A very important point. We tend to focus on the Jews, but the extermination camps targeted many different races, and even many people without a racial motive.

I am late to this thread and am too lazy to read the preceding, hence, am simply answering the question.

While I find Holocaust denial extremely onerous and have duked it out with Holocaust deniers many times, I do not think that it should be illegal to do so.

However, that statement comes from an American… me. I cannot apply my judgment of what should and should not be allowed/ disallowed upon other nations and other cultures. I am not part of these nations so, obviously, I do not know cultural dynamics or reasons for various laws, cultural ethics, and mores. One of the founding precepts of America is, specifically, freedom of speech. However, in other nations this is not so. It would be wrong of me to pass judgment on a culture I am not part of.

Holocaust denial is, and should be allowed in the United States, because we have the First Amendment, and it shouldn’t be violated.

However, any European country that wants to ban it, and does not use that as a slippery excuse to ban other things, then so be it, they have every right; and no one is harmed by them banning it. I’ve read the writings of holocaust deniers (their websites and some books they refer to), but most of their claims are easily dismissed with a little research. The claims that are not easily dismissed tend to be trivial. Holocaust denier groups tend to be loosely collected, and they gather around the same 2 or 3 intellectual leaders they have. Holocaust denier groups in Europe are violent. The ones in America cling to violent imagery, but are usually law-abiding.

I am skipping through this thread and am picking up things I wish to address.

In my last comment I elaborated on the illegal vs legal thing in America and other nations. I wish to say why I, myself, prefer having Holocaust denial legal:

There are, indeed, violent Holocaust deniers as at least one person mentioned above. Any Holocaust denier who engages in violence or other currently illegal activity (in the USA) should continue to face the full force of the law. If they express this opinion without violence (or any other illegal activity), no matter how onerous it is, it should be within their rights to do so in America.

Also, someone or someones up above mentioned that bringing this stuff to the light of day makes it very easy to debunk. As I said in my first comment, I used to take on Holocaust deniers. Part of my entertainment used to be taking on Holocaust deniers and destroying their arguments publically.

Another thing about suppressing an idea is that this is not going to eliminate it. What it does is drive those that hold the idea underground where the idea goes unchallenged and spreads.

I would rather have idiots out in plain sight where 1) I can see where and who they are, 2) I (or someone else) can debunk their idiocy, 3) the idiocy does not spread unchallenged, which it does when suppressed.

There’s a dilemma: free speech versus insulting the victims and distorting history.

I think we should accept differences among free countries. Not all laws have to be the same everywhere. The US is not the benchmark for the whole world.

In certain areas there’s a bit more freedom in Germany than the US. And in a few other cases it’s the other way round. We should respect the law because it was made by elected representatives. If we want the laws to change we have to elect different people or found our own party.

I do not see why allowing Holocaust deniers to express their opinions should have negative consequences. There may be more damage done by not allowing people to express this opinion, because it keeps the issue from being openly discussed, which makes it more likely that people will be skeptical. Prevention of free speech is always risky. I would certainly forbid hate speech, but I do not see why Holocaust denial in and of itself should be considered hate speech.

I understand that antisemites use Holocaust denial to undermine sympathy for Jews, but why should tolerance for Jews be dependent on the fact that they were mass slaughtered in WW II? Holocaust deniers have to admit that hatred of Jews was part of the Nazi party line and they are forced to admit that there were death camps for Jews. What they dispute is the extent. But why should this make a difference? Would the non-existence of the Holocaust give them license to hate Jews or to not support Israel? If I met Holocaust deniers, I would say that their beliefs contradict the evidence, and then I would ask what difference it makes one way or the other.