Very cool, if true

Oh, I'm repelled by Holocaust Denial too. I just view it as much less bad than jailing people for their opinions.

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atreic.livejournal.com

Hmm. Maybe I have some old fashioned ideas of absolute truth I need to update, but I think there is a difference between Lying, and expressing an opinion. Whether you should be locked up for either is a very debatable point, but I think there is a clear difference between talking about an observable thing (whether denying a thing that happened did, or indeed asserting that a thing that did not happen has) and debating whether a thing is good or bad.

If you deny the holocaust, (assuming for a second you do believe in measurable truth and think we are close enough to the holocaust in history to know it) you are lying about something. There are lots of laws about to deal with when lying about something hurts an individual person (slander, libel etc) - why should this be different?

Once you start passing immeasurable objective judgements on things, isn't that when freedom of speech becomes more interesting? If he'd written a book saying the Holocaust was a Good Thing, or that terrorist bombers go to heaven, or any one of a million unverifiable things, that would be far more interesting...

(Icon love, BTW)

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Well, at the time he was apparently convinced that there was no determined attempt at genocide. Apparently he then saw papers which proved it to him (two years later) and recanted.

Proving someone is being wilfully ignorant is tricky, at best.

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khbrown.livejournal.com

I wouldn't be surprised if a substantial number of the population in many Islamic states could fall foul of this, if that their governments/clerics/media tell them there was no such thing as the Holocaust, or it's never mentioned: in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it could seem so incredible as to be unbelievable.

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heron61.livejournal.com

I completely agree. Imprisoning people like that just turns morons into martyrs, and I'm far from confident that these same laws won't someday soon be turned against people's whose views I support.

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balthial.livejournal.com

Yeah, no, I meant repelled by the trial. Holocaust denial is nasty, my Mom is actually a scholar of the Holocaust and I know a fair bit about the denial movement, its pretty crazy.

....but I'm also an American, I know all about becoming the bad guyto fight something bad.

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sneerpout.livejournal.com

Agreed. Until this conviction, Irving was a spent and discredited force. Now he's a martyr.

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Um , isn't writing supposedly academic books saying the Holocaust was all a sham a bit of an active incentive for people to be kind of annoyed at the Jews for telling all those fibs?
In any case, this is just French/German positive law - not some kind of statement of universal morality. It's arguably a justifiable response to their own cultural history.
I'm not in favour of him being jailed - but I'm not averse to a very large fine, on the analogy that if he'd libelled a person rather than an entire race, he'd have been stung for several million$$ in some courts.

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It would be libel if he'd accused them of something. And you can't libel dead people, I believe.

I'm against the criminalisation of opinions, even ones which can cause some people to get emotional. I'd need things to be a lot more direct before I'd be even slightly comfortable with it being illegal.

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But libel is about opinions too, a lot of the time - and is still actionable so long as spreading that opinion causes harm to someone's reputation & is malicious. As is incitement to racial hatred. Do you want to abolish the law in both areas? This is more or less the US approach which is why hate speech flourishes on US based web sites (which is actually, I susoect, what this verdict is subtly sending a message at - both France and Germany are increasingly appalled at the amount of neo Nazi stuff that people in their countries can now access via the Net, mostly hosted in US. Bks are the tip of the ice berg.)

Google Germany eg already filters out Holocaust denial sites to german searches - did you know that? gets rather less publicity than what they've agreed in China. Countries do, IMHO, have a right to uphold their own cultural values.

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Countries do, IMHO, have a right to uphold their own cultural values.

I, of course disagree. Just because some countries have a culture of female circumcision (for instance), that doesn't make it ok for them to uphold that value.

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You really must stop greasing that slippery slope of yours...
Night!

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I view Freedom of Speech as being at the _top_ of any slippery slope. If there are going to be absolute rights enshrined in a charter, then Freedom of Speech is going to be part of it.

And, indeed, it is.

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Ahem.

Article 19
Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.
The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
For respect of the rights or reputations of others;
For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

That covers libel, anti terrorism, anti porn , protection of chn etc etc. Even clearer in the ECHR. Freedom of speech is one of the least absolute of human rights.

Gotta go!

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Sadly, yes, the UNCHR is woefully loose on the subject. I'd have been a lot more strict about it - but that's what you get when you have to get agreement from so many countries.

In any case - you've stated before that you believe in human rights - surely that directly contravenes the rights of individual countries to their own moral values? Either one or the other needs to be weakened to allow the other some foothold. Either human rights won't be universal, or national moral values will have to give way before human rights...

Personally, I don't believe in the rights of countries to have moral values - I only beleive in the rights of people to have them. I was fine with homosexuality, for instance, while Section 28 was in force, and I'd object to sweeping essentialist characterisations that said that Britons of the time were homophobic when there were clearly large numbers that weren't.

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It isn't "loose" - it's striking a balance. I believe in freedom of speech. I believe in human rights. But I also, eg, think that women have a right not to live in a world full of pictures (real or simulated) of women being killed or treated violently because it gives someone kicks (to pick one example). I think children have a right not to be coerced to apepar in child porn. Do you really totally reject the idea that "[Freedom of expression] carries with it special duties and responsibilities."?

Where that balance is struck, re freedom of expression vs the harms it can create is indeed, IMO, a matter for individual cultures - subject to the preservation of the basic conditions for democracy. I don't se why the whole world should be made to strike the same balance as the U, which is what would happen in effect if there was one standard. So I do, in fact, think Saudi Arabia has a right to say it doesn't want pictures of naked people, however harmless we may think they are, in its jurisdiction (though no right to ban them elsewhere) - but I do not think it is right for the Chinese to exclude all speech critical of the one party govt system from Chinese citizens. Being absolutist about free speech is not very productive.

Female circumcision is very different again. Going back to UNCHR

Article 7
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

There are NO derogations from this. That's because the overwhelming humanist view is that you can't balance ANYTHING against people's rights not to be treated this way. There are reasons for why human rights instruments are drafted the way they are, some articles with exceptions, some not - it's not just arbitrary.

Of course you could defend female circumcision on grounds of religious freedom - but -

Article 18
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. ...
Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

And then someone would have to argue the corrct balance in a court.

See they have thought about this stuff :-)

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I think children have a right not to be coerced to apepar in child porn.

Course they do. Was anyone saying anything different? If nothing else, their freedom of speech means they shouldn't be coerced into making that kind of speech :->

Where that balance is struck, re freedom of expression vs the harms it can create is indeed, IMO, a matter for individual cultures

Which is where we part company, because I think it's a matter for individual people.

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skington.livejournal.com

Arguably the anti-Holocaust-denial laws in Germany and Austria are unsubtle, and shouldn't be needed in a mature and civilised democracy - and France, for all its nasty racist undercurrents (mostly directed against Northern African "arabs", not jews, though), does not have anything like them on its statute books. France has the advantage of having won the Second World War, though, and as such as more comfortable with denouncing those French (Pétainistes mostly) who were on the Wrong Side. I suspect Germany and Austria may still need their anti-Holocaust-denial laws for a while - and the political impact of repealing them would be such that I'd prefer to just let them wither and die until they become the equivalent of those old laws we still have on our statute books (and haven't bothered repealing) that let us shoot Welshmen on Thursdays.

As for David Irving: he may have recanted, and I believe he was financially ruined by his failed libel trial, but when it comes down to it, he knew that if he returned to Austria he would be arrested, and he snuck in illegally to try and give a speech and got caught. In the era of the Internet, there are more sensible ways of talking to people.

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azalemeth.livejournal.com

By "actively inciting others to commit harmful acts", do you mean the proverbial "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, being a boot-seargant for an insurgents' camp, directing your ~~brainwashed~~ loyal followers in an indirect way to "remember their objective", or, say, publishing something that you know in advance might not be well received (http://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/captions/muslim_stereotype.jpg) (I do love that picture though. Have some more (http://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/captions/muslim_speech.jpg)here (http://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/captions/hamza_terrorism.jpg), and here (http://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/captions/cameron_davis.jpg)...heck,They've got directory listing on (http://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/captions/)).

I know what you're saying, and I agree with you - it's just, well, #define <"actively inciting others.h">. There is room for a series of liberal (or, to put it another way, extremist) interpretations...

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(1) and (2) of those. Insulting pictures are very different, in my opinion, from clearly stating "Killing Muslims is a good thing."

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missedith01.livejournal.com

Locking people up for expressing an opinion is something I find totally repellent, _no matter what that opinion might be_.

Agreed. Where expressing an opinion ends and incitement starts may be difficult to decide in specific cases, but there's no justification for this kind of law, IMHO. Makes it even sadder that we're on the way to getting one ourselves.

Undoubtedly, the laws are a response to events in coutries with a reason to fear the far right. Sadly, I don't think this is the way to defeat the far right. Quite the opposite.

The fact that he'd recanted is pretty irrelevant to me. I'd still think this was wrong if he was shouting his repugnant views from the rooftops of Vienna.

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Well, he went to another country and broke their laws, probably deliberately. Would you be happy for others to come to your country and ignore the laws they didn't agree with?

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Depends on the law. The ones forbidding the teaching of homosexuality as normal, for instance, should have been broken as often as possible as strongly as possible.

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If it's ok to pick and choose which laws we break, why have laws at all? As which ones are deemed ok to break will vary from person to person.

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Whether to obey unjust laws is a constant question for the educated citizen, creating a necessary tension between them and the government which pushes forward changes.

I think democracy is useful, but I don't consider it somehow magically able to create Absolute Good, and my actions are responsible only to what I believe is right.

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What's "the educated" got to do with it? Does your law treat the educated any different from the less-well educated?

As to what is and isn't unjust will also vary between individuals, whether educated or otherwise.

The proper response to laws you think are unjust is to attempt to get them changed.

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The proper response to laws you think are unjust is to attempt to get them changed.

Indeed. And also to disobey them until them, if they are sufficently unjust. Whether any particular law is merely unjust enough to lobby for change, or so unjust as to be ignored is a matter for the conscience of the individual.

I believe that at the end of World War 2 they pretty much categorically put an end to the excuse of "I was just following orders."

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I'd say the reason to obey laws you consider unjust is so others will obey the laws you consider just.

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That would be the case for the middle ground - laws which are merely unjust enough to lobby for change.

Aer you saying that you would obey a law, no matter how unjust it was? If you lived in a country where the law was that women who showed an ankle should be reported to the morality department for it, so they could be punished, would you do so?

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No, I wouldn't. but we live in middle-ground countries, and Austria is such a middle-ground country too. If you take you next holiday in Austria, will you deny the existence of the Holocaust just to make a point about free-speech?

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