David Irving's off to jail for questioning the extent of the Holocaust.
Why isn't the mainstream media up in arms about the unjust Austrian law that has sent him to prison for exercising his freedom of speech?
Oh that's right, the media's too busy raising a stink about their right to print (and re-print) those cartoons of Mohama-what's his face. Is anyone else a little queasy at the fact that the mainstream media is only willing to carry the banner of free speech for some causes, but not others?
I'd be interested in seeing what everyone's thoughts on this matter are. Do you believe that speech should be censored when it may be offensive? Or do you think that the freedom to say whatever you want, no matter how distasteful, is of paramount importance in a truly free society?
Here's the link to the Irving bit: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/02/21/austria.irving.trial.reut/
Irving to appeal jail sentence
Tuesday, February 21, 2006 Posted: 0706 GMT (1506 HKT)
VIENNA, Austria (Reuters) -- An Austrian court sentenced British historian David Irving to three years in prison on Monday for denying the Holocaust during a 1989 stopover in Austria, dismissing his argument that he had changed his views.
Irving pleaded guilty, hoping for a suspended sentence, but the Vienna criminal court concluded he was only making a pretence of acknowledging Nazi Germany's genocide against Jews in order to escape a jail term.
"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, 67, said he was shocked by the sentence handed down by three judges and eight lay jurors and lodged an immediate appeal.
His lawyer Elmar Kresbach said that even if Irving lost the appeal, he was likely to serve a maximum 1-1/2 to two years because of his age and status as a first-time offender.
Irving was arrested on a return visit to Austria last November, based on a warrant over lectures and a press interview he made in 1989 in the Alpine republic, where denying the Nazi genocide is a crime punishable by one to 10 years in prison.
"I'm not a Holocaust denier. Obviously, I've changed my views," Irving told reporters on his way into the court carrying a copy of "Hitler's War", among dozens of books on Nazi Germany and World War Two the self-taught historian has written.
Irving acknowledged denying in 1989 that Nazi Germany had killed millions of Jews but said he changed in his mind in 1991 after coming across personal files of Adolf Eichmann, the chief organizer of the Holocaust, during a speaking tour in Argentina.
"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," he said.
"The Nazis did murder millions of Jews," added Irving, who addressed the court in fluent German.
He argued the case against him was a denial of his right to free speech and that historians in Austria and Germany, which has similar laws against Holocaust denial, were being told by lawmakers how to write history.
"Of course this trial is a question of freedom of speech," Irving told reporters. "The law is an ass here."
Austria is keen to show it is tough on Holocaust denial since a significant number of Nazi leaders including Adolf Hitler came from Austria, and Jews and other critics accused the country of glossing over its past for decades after the war.
Austria's 1986-92 president, Kurt Waldheim, admitted to hiding his service in Nazi Germany's army in the Balkans during World War Two and became unwelcome in many countries.
State prosecutor Michael Klackl contended that Irving was a serial "falsifier of history", dressed up as a martyr by right-wing extremists, and that his courtroom admissions only paid lip service to Austrian law.
"He's continued to deny the fact that the Holocaust was genocide orchestrated from the highest ranks of the Nazi state," Klackl said, citing examples of statements Irving made in interviews during the 1990s after his supposed turnabout.
Kresbach had asked the court for leniency because he said Irving had moderated his views and posed no threat to a stable Austrian democracy six decades after World War Two.
"Irving had expected certain strictness by the court because he was a very well known case. But the sentence was too harsh. It became a bit of a (political) message trial and the message was too strong," Kresbach told reporters after sentencing.
But Klackl said Irving remained an icon for neo-Nazis and revisionist historians worldwide.
Irving was arrested while on his way to address Austrian radical rightist student fraternity Olympia.
The prosecution said he attended meetings of "revisionist" historians, those dismissing the Holocaust, even after the time of his professed insight into the truth of the genocide, in which 6 million European Jews were killed by Nazi Germany.
A British High Court ruling in 2000 rejected Irving's libel suit against an American professor and her publishers, declaring Irving "an active Holocaust denier ... anti-Semitic and racist."
Copyright 2006 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Why isn't the mainstream media up in arms about the unjust Austrian law that has sent him to prison for exercising his freedom of speech?
Oh that's right, the media's too busy raising a stink about their right to print (and re-print) those cartoons of Mohama-what's his face. Is anyone else a little queasy at the fact that the mainstream media is only willing to carry the banner of free speech for some causes, but not others?
I'd be interested in seeing what everyone's thoughts on this matter are. Do you believe that speech should be censored when it may be offensive? Or do you think that the freedom to say whatever you want, no matter how distasteful, is of paramount importance in a truly free society?
Here's the link to the Irving bit: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/02/21/austria.irving.trial.reut/
Irving to appeal jail sentence
Tuesday, February 21, 2006 Posted: 0706 GMT (1506 HKT)
VIENNA, Austria (Reuters) -- An Austrian court sentenced British historian David Irving to three years in prison on Monday for denying the Holocaust during a 1989 stopover in Austria, dismissing his argument that he had changed his views.
Irving pleaded guilty, hoping for a suspended sentence, but the Vienna criminal court concluded he was only making a pretence of acknowledging Nazi Germany's genocide against Jews in order to escape a jail term.
"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, 67, said he was shocked by the sentence handed down by three judges and eight lay jurors and lodged an immediate appeal.
His lawyer Elmar Kresbach said that even if Irving lost the appeal, he was likely to serve a maximum 1-1/2 to two years because of his age and status as a first-time offender.
Irving was arrested on a return visit to Austria last November, based on a warrant over lectures and a press interview he made in 1989 in the Alpine republic, where denying the Nazi genocide is a crime punishable by one to 10 years in prison.
"I'm not a Holocaust denier. Obviously, I've changed my views," Irving told reporters on his way into the court carrying a copy of "Hitler's War", among dozens of books on Nazi Germany and World War Two the self-taught historian has written.
Irving acknowledged denying in 1989 that Nazi Germany had killed millions of Jews but said he changed in his mind in 1991 after coming across personal files of Adolf Eichmann, the chief organizer of the Holocaust, during a speaking tour in Argentina.
"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," he said.
"The Nazis did murder millions of Jews," added Irving, who addressed the court in fluent German.
He argued the case against him was a denial of his right to free speech and that historians in Austria and Germany, which has similar laws against Holocaust denial, were being told by lawmakers how to write history.
"Of course this trial is a question of freedom of speech," Irving told reporters. "The law is an ass here."
Austria is keen to show it is tough on Holocaust denial since a significant number of Nazi leaders including Adolf Hitler came from Austria, and Jews and other critics accused the country of glossing over its past for decades after the war.
Austria's 1986-92 president, Kurt Waldheim, admitted to hiding his service in Nazi Germany's army in the Balkans during World War Two and became unwelcome in many countries.
State prosecutor Michael Klackl contended that Irving was a serial "falsifier of history", dressed up as a martyr by right-wing extremists, and that his courtroom admissions only paid lip service to Austrian law.
"He's continued to deny the fact that the Holocaust was genocide orchestrated from the highest ranks of the Nazi state," Klackl said, citing examples of statements Irving made in interviews during the 1990s after his supposed turnabout.
Kresbach had asked the court for leniency because he said Irving had moderated his views and posed no threat to a stable Austrian democracy six decades after World War Two.
"Irving had expected certain strictness by the court because he was a very well known case. But the sentence was too harsh. It became a bit of a (political) message trial and the message was too strong," Kresbach told reporters after sentencing.
But Klackl said Irving remained an icon for neo-Nazis and revisionist historians worldwide.
Irving was arrested while on his way to address Austrian radical rightist student fraternity Olympia.
The prosecution said he attended meetings of "revisionist" historians, those dismissing the Holocaust, even after the time of his professed insight into the truth of the genocide, in which 6 million European Jews were killed by Nazi Germany.
A British High Court ruling in 2000 rejected Irving's libel suit against an American professor and her publishers, declaring Irving "an active Holocaust denier ... anti-Semitic and racist."
Copyright 2006 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
