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[petunia_fist]

"A controversial British historian, David Irving, was sentenced by an Austrian court to three years' imprisonment for the crime of Holocaust denial, even though he pleaded guilty and said that he now admitted that the mass murder of Jews had taken place."

Comments

[pansette]

I know it's not really a popular oppinion, but the same people who are screaming free speech over those Mohamud cartoons should be up in arms about this too.

The man is being convicted, basically, for practicing bad history. This is not a good prescident to set.

[petunia_fist]

Yeah. I mean, I'm all for condescending to people for stuff like this...but three years in prison is a bit harsh.

[cathaarsix]

um, guys, this person was sentenced to three years for very clearly violating a very well-known and clearly elucidated law. in Germany he'd have gotten even more time. he wasn't blindsided, these laws are very very famous, and he had to have known what he was doing violated the law. if i flagrantly smoked pot in public, i'd deserve whatever sentence i got too, even though i think it's wrong to put people in jail for pot.

[petunia_fist]

I realize that he broke a law. My complaint is that I think laws governing this sort of thing are a bit out of line, no matter how well intentioned they may be.

I'm just saying I think 3 years is harsh. I also would say that a harsh sentence for pot smoking is ridiculous...

[point5]

when we were in amsterdam there was a informative presentation/quiz at the anne frank museum about the pros and cons of the legality of holocaust denial vs. free speech. the law in the netherlands is that its illegal to deny the holocaust AND its illegal to discriminate (the example here was hate speech in the form of calling a rival soccer team jews and holding up signs that tell them that they wish their grandparents had burned in the ovens or something) or so i remember. well as far as i could tell everyone they polled there was pro free speech. anyway id been pretty ignorant to the fact that free speech wanst as protected as much in some countires as it was in america (even though we seem pretty piss poor at it lately)