http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060220/...ZhBHNlYwM3MjE-

While I have no sympathy for people who attempt to revise history, it is simply wrong to jail or fine people for opinions or beliefs -- however repugnant those beliefs may be. Criminal punishment chills discussion without eliminating the problem. In the face of legal pressure, people who deny the Holocaust will simply go underground, where their claims cannot be examined, refuted and then discarded from public discourse.

Europe in general has a free and vigorous political culture and a strong committment to free speech. But cases like these illustrate why the United States is lucky to have a First Amendment -- even if we don't always like some of the speech that it protects.

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Man up.

Free speech is a bit of a misnomer but I guess it conveys the idea.

But there`s still limits.

You can`t slander or libel someone for example.

In the UK we don`t have any law prohibiting holocaust denail but we recently acquired one prohibitting "incitement to religious hatred". It`s a bit of a silly law and no-one`s too sure what it means but you can see what they`re getting at.

Free speech, sure, but you can`t stand outside a mosque and start calling for the extermination of the Jews. That`s a bit strong.

David Irving was doing more than stating a belief or opinion. He was touring radical far right groups in Europe and using his authority as an historian to deceive and distort. I don`t know but I`m guessing that as an historian lecturing about auschwitz that he must have been there, right? He must have seen the gas chambers.

There`s no such thing as absolute freedom and drawing the line on free speech must be one of the harder decisions to make. Much as I admire the American constitution I don`t think that the Austrian courts have necessarily made a bad call in this instance.

Three years might be a bit steep but if it`s anything like England he`ll be out in 18 months.

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Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
Marx (G.)

If we did that here in the US our jails would be filled up faster than you can say blitzkrieg...

If European nations are going to start imprisoning Arab immigrants who deny the Holocaust.. my gut tells me that they would be hesitant to do so, simply because they would be afraid of a Muslim backlash against them.

Imprisonment is bad. The best way to "beat him" is in the free and open public debate. There's plenty of evidence of the Holocaust, so there would be no problem proving him wrong.

I agree with Raytri: we don't imprison people for their beliefs....no matter how screwy they might be.

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"If the President simply adds a couple of Republican solutions to a trillion dollar health care package that the American people don't support, it isn't bi-partisan. It's political cover," Rep Eric Cantor (R-Va.)

Even though I am a populist, I oppose laws against hate speech that doesn't advocate crime. Therefore, though I have no personal sympathy for this Nazi sympathizer, I would not charge him with any crime.

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"I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased- short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed." (Max Beerbohm)

It's Europe. What did you expect.

...as I understand it, wherein Holocaust denial is a criminal offence...in that context - hownow the 'cartoon'?

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"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

It is a bit wacky to jail someone for having a stupid thought and sharing it. I'm sure most Jews know not to take such nimrods seriously.
This is pretty farcical.

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"Conservatives say if you don't give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they've lost all incentive because we've given them too much money."

-George Carlin

i dont consider this a crime, just ignorance. with the amount of evidence it actually did happen, and the fact that a "historian" belives contrary... i think at the most he just be laughed at and publicly mocked for his own stupidity and lose his job title of historian...because he definitely doesnt seem to have the ability to get his facts straight