i dont know if i agree with this. i certainly understand where they are coming from. but similarly if denying holocaust which in essence is inciting hatred towards jews is a crime...why shouldn't the cartoons be a crime as well? both are simply renditions of history. fundamentally one considered the prophet a terrorist. the other considered hitler not very violent (at least to the contemporary accepted degree). also i think americans are a bit wohoo free speech about this. this isn't the US. this is europe. there is tradition going back centuries of anti-semitism. i think its fairly legitimate to ensure it is curbed. Last update - 04:41 21/02/2006 David Irving gets three years in jail for Holocaust denial By Amiram Barket, Haaretz Correspondent and News Agencies VIENNA - Right-wing British historian David Irving was convicted in Austria on Monday of denying the Holocaust - a crime in this country once run by the Nazis - and was sentenced to three years in prison. Irving, 67, who had pleaded guilty and insisted during his one-day trial that he had a change of heart and now acknowledged the Nazis' World War II slaughter of 6 million Jews, had faced up to 10 years behind bars for the offense. "The court did not consider the defendant to have genuinely changed his mind," presiding judge Peter Liebetreu told the court after pronouncing the sentence. "The regret he showed was considered to be mere lip service to the law." Irving's lawyer immediately announced he would appeal the sentence. "I consider the verdict a little too stringent. I would say it's a bit of a message trial," said the attorney, Elmar Kresbach. Irving appeared shocked as the sentence was read out. Moments later, an elderly man who identified himself only as a family friend called out: "Stay strong, David - stay strong," before he was escorted from the courtroom. During the trial, Irving conceded he erred in contending there were no Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz. Irving told reporters he now acknowledges that the Nazis systematically slaughtered Jews during World War II. "History is like a constantly changing tree," he said as an eight-member jury and a panel of three judges prepared to hear charges that could put him behind bars for up to 10 years. Irving, handcuffed and wearing a navy blue suit, arrived at the court carrying a copy of one of his most controversial books - "Hitler's War," which challenges the extent of the Holocaust. "I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz," Irving told the court, speaking in German. But he insisted he never wrote a book about the Holocaust, which he called "just a fragment of my area of interest." "In no way did I deny the killings of millions of people by the Nazis," Irving testified. Earlier, he told journalists he considered it "ridiculous" that he was standing trial for remarks made 17 years ago. "I said that then based on my knowledge at the time, but by 1991 when I came across the Eichmann papers, I wasn't saying that anymore and I wouldn't say that now," Irving said. "The Nazis did murder millions of Jews," said Irving, who answered the court in fluent German. He has been in custody since his arrest in November on charges stemming from two speeches he gave in Austria in 1989 in which he was accused of denying the Nazis' extermination of 6 million Jews. The state attorney's office said the 1989 remarks were "a dangerous violation of freedom of speech." A verdict was expected later Monday, with a conviction almost certain because of Irving's guilty plea. In interviews with the British media ahead of the trial, Irving and his Austrian lawyer said they did not believe they would win the case. The lawyer, Elmar Kresbach, has claimed recently that Irving had changed his views back in 1992 after he uncovered a radio transmission containing a message to Adolf Eichmann about the extermination of a million Jews at the Treblinka death camp. Prosecutor unimpressed Irving's answers failed to impress state prosecutor Michael Klackl, who called Irving in his opening statement a falsifier of history who was dressed up as a martyr by right-wing extremists. "The David Irving I heard today in the court was not the David Irving I got to know in preparing for this trial," Klackl told Reuters after the court adjourned for lunch. "The court will have to decide whether Irving has made an honest confession or is merely engaged in tactics (to reduce his sentence)," he said. Experts also cast doubt on the sincerity of these claims. Prof. Dina Porat, head of Tel Aviv University's Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, told Haaretz Sunday that Irving's purported repentence is motivated by his fear of a verdict that could amount to 10 years' imprisonment. "It is not possible that Irving changed his mind in 1992 without saying anything about it in the course of the libel trial he initiated in 2000," Porat said. Irving's trial comes amid new - and fierce - debate over freedom of expression in Europe, where the printing and reprinting of unflattering cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad has triggered violent protests worldwide. Irving had tried to win his provisional release on $24,000 bail, but a Vienna court refused, saying it considered him a flight risk. Irving was arrested November 11 in the southern Austrian province of Styria on a warrant issued in 1989. He was charged under a federal law that makes it a crime to publicly diminish, deny or justify the Holocaust. Within two weeks of his arrest, Irving asserted through his lawyer that he had come to acknowledge the existence of Nazi-era gas chambers. In the past, however, he has claimed that Adolf Hitler knew little if anything about the Holocaust, and has been quoted as saying there was "not one shred of evidence" the Nazis carried out their "Final Solution" to exterminate the Jewish population on such a massive scale. Irving is the author of nearly 30 books, and has contended most of those who died at concentration camps such as Auschwitz succumbed to diseases such as typhus rather than execution. In 2000, Irving sued American Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt for libel in a British court, but lost. The presiding judge in that case, Charles Gray, wrote that Irving was "an active Holocaust denier ... anti-Semitic and racist." Irving has had numerous run-ins with the law over the years. In 1992, a judge in Germany fined him the equivalent of $6,000 for publicly insisting the Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz were a hoax. haaretz
Euro hypocrisy? Nah, it's just that they are more sensitive to anti-Jewish sentiments which have been historically a major problem in Europe for centuries. Makes sense, it's a double-standard of course, but it makes sense to them in their own society given that historical context.
i definitely agree some sort of restricitons are necessary to curb centuries of anti-semitism in the west. however how is it not hypocrisy when you apply one set of rules for one people and another set for another? and this isn't isolated. the tests in that german province that only muslims have to take. you can't have anti-gay beliefs (which are the mainstream de jure position in the US) but anti-islam beliefs are legit?
A major problem? Like killing six million of them? Perhaps Europe should make the following offer to Muslims: If you want special protections like the Jews, then you must suffer an equal amount. Any takers on that offer?
Whatanti- Islam beliefs- Is thinking extremist Muslims are prone to violence and anti- Islam belief or the truth? There is a pretty big difference between that and Holocaust denial. No one is proposing exterminating Muslims on a mass scale.
the cartoons showed the prophet as being a terrorist which obviously is more than saying extremists are violent. its saying islam itself. which is inciting hatred. if you recall there were satirist during nuremberg who were hung simply for the outlandish and hateful cartoons they drew. what kind of nonsense is that? and since the crux of your argument is numbers...how about the 100 million native americans that were killed. that sure as hell is genocide. or what about the 20 million or so africans who died while coming here on the ships. crime should be prevented not solved. thats a fairly basic tenet of law. you should be pro-active with laws not re-active.
Here's the offer - let 6 million Muslims die in concentration camps, then Europe can pass a Muslim Holocaust denial law. That's fair right?
well here's the hole in your argument obviously, the natives are savages, so they really don't count. and it was written.
No, obviously the elevator doesn't go all the way to the top and gets stuck on the "victimhood" floor.
This guy should just move to Japan, it is perfectly acceptable over there to deny world war II atrocities.
I think that's up to interpretation. It could simply be showing what extremist Muslims have turned Islam into. And how is it inciting hatred? Nobody attacked Muslims because of the cartoons.
The Prophet Muhammad is the representative of all Muslims, not just the extremists. It's not really open to interpretation, seems pretty cut-and-dry if I take it at face value. And gwayneco, you have officially lost your mind with some of that non-sense you said. Let Muslims first get slaughtered by Europeans and then they can have similar protections? Wow! Great logic! You're right, we shouldn't learn from history, we should repeat former atrocities first and THEN we do the right thing. I have a proposal: how about we enslave Hispanics in the U.S. first and treat them like **** much like we treated Blacks, then they can complain and ask for protection later on?
Exactly, the hypocrisy and arrogance of the Japanese in that regard is pretty clear, but we have a similar situation here in the U.S. with the Native Americans, we are trying to 'forget' and move on and we collectively as a society don't seem to be interested in recognizing and taking responsibility for our past. It's an all too common theme across the world.
So of someone makes fun of Christ in response to abortion clinic bombers are they targeting all Christians? Not necessarily. The target could be simply the fundamentalists. Besides- even if it is targetting all Muslims its aim was not to incite hatred towards Muslims.
