Europe 'Not Doing Enough' to Fight Holocaust Denial
More than a dozen European Union nations have failed to fully criminalize the denial of crimes against humanity and war crimes, the EU's executive said on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Though the bloc agreed in 2008 to outlaw the denial, condonement or gross trivialization of such crimes, around half of its 28 members have failed to write these rules into their domestic legislation, the European Commission said.
"Today, we have achieved peace between nations in the European Union," said the bloc's Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding.
"Yet another challenge remains: to continue the quest for tolerance. Nobody should ever have to experience hate speech or hate crime."
Reding said she was urging all EU states to swiftly transpose EU rules into their national laws.
Countries not in line with the 2008 rules by December 1 this year could face judicial action.
The Commission said 13 countries -- Austria, Belgium, Britain, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Hungary, the Netherlands and Sweden -- have no criminal law provisions governing the public condoning, denial and gross trivialization of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
And 15 nations -- Bulgaria, Britain, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden -- have no specific provisions criminalizing public condoning, denial and gross trivialization of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity by major war criminals of the European Axis countries.
In a separate statement, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Holocaust Remembrance Day was an occasion "to remind us all of the need to continue fighting prejudice and racism in our own time."
"We must remain vigilant against the dangers of hate speech and redouble our commitment to prevent any form of intolerance," she added.
Anti-immigration sentiment is on the rise across Europe, with extremist rightwing parties looking to make strong gains in elections for the European Parliament in May.
06 February 2014, 12:06
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Maybe if Israel admitted that the six million jew number is a gross exaggeration, other countries would feel slightly better about it, especially now that "denial" is believing anything other than Israel's story.
06 February 2014, 13:34
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It's kind of hard to do given how Israel is ruining the image of Jews everywhere by emulating what Germany did to Poland with Palestinian settlements, what Germany did to Russia by betraying its own allies in the west and just generally being the modern equivalent of Nazi Germany in irony. There is also the deal with hypocrisy over glorifying multiculturalism and immigration in all countries except of course in Israel where not so long ago tens of thousands of Africans were deported and not given asylum.
Of course it thinks that a past victim status excuses all the present events. Beautiful paradox, nazi victim turns nazi.
06 February 2014, 13:49
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I'm Irish and anyone can say the famine never happened, I'd never created a law pushing the poor cunt into jail for their views.
Why can't jews value free speech as much as others?
If anything you'll just create more hate for jews around Europe and give ammo for people who believe the holocaust never happened.
06 February 2014, 14:12
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i trought the EU would respect national laws.. but it seems they want to treat them more like "puppets"
glad we are not a part of this "union"
06 February 2014, 15:26
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How come that Holocaust denial is crime, but Holodomor denial for ex. is perfectly okay?
06 February 2014, 18:38
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Anyone with any intellectual independence at all, with a little effort and analysis, would soon realize the holocaust is acutually the hollowhoax. For starters, show me the bodies. Did you know that organized Jewry has a dictate out to not debate the "deniers" in a public forum under any circumstances. The reason being is that they get their asses handed to them when they do. There is no forensic evidence this ever happened. Jews were incarcerated in work camps during the course of the war to aid in the German war effort. Period. Anything else is just smoke to excuse the jew's persistant lack of good behavior.
19 February 2015, 00:56
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Even if 100,000 jews died at the hands of the nazis it would be a terrible tragedy. The 6 million figure was unfortunately bandied about as early as 1925 in the New York Times. This was referring to the number of jews in Europe who were discriminated against in varying degrees.
