www.talkcyprus.org

[erolz]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4417298.stm

I certainly find this man's views odious to the extreme but I have to say I have real problems with laws that prohibit things like 'denying the holocust'.

Incitement to racial hatred, libel even disparaging the dead - ok. But to proscribe in law people expressing their 'beleifs', no matter how odious or incorrect these 'beliefs' may be, is to me a step to far.

[bg_turk]

denying the suffering of the other should not be a crime in itself, causing this suffering should.

But then what do you do if denying is the cause of the suffering? :?

[city]

erolz wrote: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4417298.stm

I certainly find this man's views odious to the extreme but I have to say I have real problems with laws that prohibit things like 'denying the holocust'.

Incitement to racial hatred, libel even disparaging the dead - ok. But to proscribe in law people expressing their 'beleifs', no matter how odious or incorrect these 'beliefs' may be, is to me a step to far.

Well, I certainly understand that there need to be a balance kept between laws and the right to freedom of speech.
However, the holocaust and the death of 50 million people in WW2, of which 6 million were jews is certainly an international recognised fact.

quote from the BBC article:
The judge told him he must also answer charges of denying the Holocaust after claiming that the death camps were merely a Jewish plot to extort money from post-war Germany.

If one has ever been to Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen or any other former concentration camp and has seen the horrible documentations and original film footage the allied took when freeing the camps can certainly not believe that this has all just been made up to extort money from Germany.

http://www.buchenwald.de/index_en.html

http://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/Camps/BuchenwaldEng.html

[erolz]

city wrote:
Well, I certainly understand that there need to be a balance kept between laws and the right to freedom of speech.
However, the holocaust and the death of 50 million people in WW2, of which 6 million were jews is certainly an international recognised fact.

quote from the BBC article:
The judge told him he must also answer charges of denying the Holocaust after claiming that the death camps were merely a Jewish plot to extort money from post-war Germany.

If one has ever been to Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen or any other former concentration camp and has seen the horrible documentations and original film footage the allied took when freeing the camps can certainly not believe that this has all just been made up to extort money from Germany.

http://www.buchenwald.de/index_en.html

http://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/Camps/BuchenwaldEng.html

I guess for me that's my point. The holocust is so clearly a historical fact so why make denying it illegal? You may just as well make it illegal to deny gravity exists, or that human beings sometimes do bad things. Let them deny these things and then be shown to be blantly wrong. You can not legislate to stop these people holding these extreme views. Legisaltion either drives them 'underground' or gives them more publicity than they should ever have imo.

[city]

erolz wrote: I guess for me that's my point. The holocust is so clearly a historical fact so why make denying it illegal? You may just as well make it illegal to deny gravity exists, or that human beings sometimes do bad things. Let them deny these things and then be shown to be blantly wrong. You can not legislate to stop these people holding these extreme views. Legisaltion either drives them 'underground' or gives them more publicity than they should ever have imo.

I can understand where you are coming from Erol, but it might be more moral reasons that lead to this law here in Germany.
Otherwise you could have people freely advertising those kinds of views here and that would leave a very bad impression.

[bg_turk]

city wrote:
I can understand where you are coming from Erol, but it might be more moral reasons that lead to this law here in Germany.
Otherwise you could have people freely advertising those kinds of views here and that would leave a very bad impression.

I personally do not agree that there should be a law. It sets a bad precedent of a historical absolutism where the state can decide by law what happened in history.
Those that advocate views that lack any credibility should just be ignored and considered ignorant of historical facts.
Nobody should be punished for ignorance or negligence as long as it doesnt cause harm to others.
Of course, if they are advocating this kind of history with some inferior motives of racism and violance, and this can be proven then they should be punished.

[Dhavlos]

I agree with erol, that thast kind of things should not be legislated on.

However, given the historical context that the Holocaust has in germany, maybe it is needed, so that it doesnt happen again...

[city]

seems Austria has similar laws:

Austria holds 'Holocaust denier'

British revisionist historian David Irving is being held in Austria under laws against denying the Holocaust.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4446646.stm