Austrian prosecutors: We'll have to react to new Irving remarks

M&C news ^ | March 1, 2006 | Anon

[flushed with pride]

Latin itself is quite rusty. You mean that Latin is still actually spoken somewhere in the world? I was under the impression that, outside of the Catholic church, it ceased to be in use some time ago.

[muawiyah]

68/69, and the rules were different right up to Oct 68 when the Russians messed up Czech. The only place I could go on just my ID and a pass after that were members of the Common Market and to UK.

I would imagine your service operated under those same rules.

[muawiyah]

There are people who use Latin cognate languages ~ in Luxembourg, in Switzerland, in Austria.

Then you have the ex-seminarians.

Latin is more alive than any of the various kinds of Gallo.

[tonycavanagh]

re :I would imagine your service operated under those same rules.

We had to use a passport to travel outside Germany.

I think the main reason was AWOLs.

If we thought someone was going to do a runner there passport was confiscated.

[muawiyah]

Simple enough ~ a Ukian would find it remarkably easy to get "back home". An American, though, would have a much more difficult time of it ~ and most of them would want to stay in Deutschland anyway.

We had a Dutch architect who'd moved to the US and gotten drafted. He used to visit his mother a couple of times amonth!

[muawiyah]

But, back to Irving and the Krautmasters ~ given that he's a very stupid guy, why do the Austrians think they have to prove themselves even more blockheaded?

It's not like there's any contest any of them can win.

[rcocean]

Its so absurd. Except for a small number of neo-nazi's, no one cares about Irving's views on anything. Except for all the free publicity, he would just be an obscure nut, with no more influence than the President of the Flat Earth Society, except:

His enemies will not leave him alone. They persist in attacking him, jailing, etc. thereby giving him all the publicity he wants.

I wonder how many ignorant people, around the world, are now saying: "Well, maybe Irving is right, I'll have to visit his website or read his book".

[Yo-Yo]

So what's stopping Austria from repealing it? Free speech is free speech, as long as it isn't "Fire" in a crowded building.

Today it's against the law to deny the Holocaust. Tomorrow it may be against the law to deny the Prophet Mohammad.

[tonycavanagh]

re :So what's stopping Austria from repealing it?

Because its only been sixty years.

Can you imagine the uproar in the worlds press, it would make front page news and I bet discussed extensively on the Internet in forums such as this. The whole Nazi past would be raked up again.

Germany and Austria are very touchy about what happened during the Nazi years. They were social lepers for years.

[JC399]

The idea that laws specific to Holocaust denial being enacted at the end of WW2 is a common misconception. Most of those laws are relatively recent - like within the past 25 years or so in European countries that have them. Instead of repealing such laws I think you'll see a lot more of them.

You may not be aware of this but denying the Armenian genocide is also a crime in France and Switzerland. The famous Jewish American historian, Bernard Lewis, has already been convicted of this heinous crime some years back in France and two Turkish Nationals in Switzerland are currently under investigation, and may face charges as well. It's a scary world.

Bernard Lewis case, France (he was convicted):
http://www.hr-action.org/armenia/LeMonde.htm
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/Affirmation.240/current_category.76/affirmation_detail.html

Turkish Nationals, Switzerland (under investigation):
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=111&sid=5978414
http://www.turks.us/article.php?story=20050506063125876
http://archive.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=42246

In Germany and Austria even simple insult/slander is a criminal offense (you can go to prison for it). They also have laws against things like defaming the state (punishable by 5 years in prison) and spreading malicious gossip against people in political life. These laws are not just about Nazis - they hurt everyone.

"Nils B. must not be imprisoned for accusing Bremen authorities of racism"
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR230041998?open&of=ENG-DEU

"TWO MEN FACE IMPRISONMENT FOR CRITICISING STATE AUTHORITIES"
http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/germany/document.do?id=48061E51E9752A1A802569A500715D9A

Defaming the state charge/conviction for protesting the killing of an asylum seeker by the police. These protesters held up signs comparing the Bavarian police to Nazis,

"Verunglimpfung des Staates – Kritik wurde bestraft.
Der Student Hans-Georg E. protestierte gegen den Tod eines Asylbewerbers während der Abschiebung mit "Nazis modern, der Staat schiebt ab, das ist das gleiche Faschistenpack". Damit habe er - so das Landgericht in 2.Instanz - das "Augenmaß verloren". Süddeutsche Zeitung, 4.4.2000, Seite L4"

http://www.cras-legam.de/HHZ06.htm

http://www.rote-hilfe.de/rhz/rhz199904/puv011.html

You may know also the Ernst Zündel is being tried in Germany for denying the holocaust. But the clincher is that he didn't violate any laws within the borders of Germany. He is being convicted for his US/Canadian website even though he hasn't lived in Germany since 1958. Germany ruled some time ago that those who publish material illegal on internet can be punished under German law even if the material resides on a foreign server and even if they are not German citizens. Thus, German law appears to transcend its borders.

"German prosecutors obtained an arrest warrant for Zundel in 2003.

Their 20-page indictment widely cites Zundel's texts dating from 1999 to 2003, which prosecutors say demonstrate his attempts "in a pseudo-scientific way, to relieve National Socialism of the stain of the murder of the Jews."

Zundel "denied the fate of destruction for the Jews planned by National Socialist powerholders and justified this by saying that the mass destruction in Auschwitz and Treblinka, among others, were an invention of the Jews and served the repression and blackmail of the German people," it says.

Because his Holocaust-denying website is available in Germany, which is now run by his wife, he is considered to have been spreading his message to Germans."

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051108/zundel_trial_051108?s_name=&no_ads=

See also,

"
(1) If a foreigner puts on the Internet on a foreign server statements made by him or her that satisfy the definition of incitement to hatred and violence against segments of the population (Volksverhetzung) as defined in section 130 (1) or section 130 (3) of the German Criminal Code (known as the “Auschwitzlüge” - holocaust denial), and this server is accessible to Internet users in Germany, then if these statements are specifically suited to cause unrest in Germany, this constitutes a result that is one of the elements of the offence (section 9 (1), third alternative, German Criminal Code).
"
http://www.margaret-marks.com/Transblawg/archives/000062.html

So even Americans can be prosecuted for what they say on internet in their own country.