31 Comments

1. jerry:

Roger:

There is no “but” in free speech. I feel the same about Irving as I do about the cartoons. The answer to bad speech is more speech not inprisonment.

Feb 20, 2006 - 6:46 pm 2. Charlie (Colorado):

I’m sure he’s shocked. I’m less sure he’s appealing.

I agree with jerry on free speech; I agree with you that this guy is far down my list of people I propose to worry about.

Feb 20, 2006 - 7:33 pm 3. Snippet:

Dear Austria,

If this sort of quack actually starts to make some headway into public opionion, try this:

Prove him wrong with a whole bunch of facts and stuff. Use public money, even.

If he’s right, then he’s got a hell of a story. If he’s wrong, then facts, rather than stupid and hypocritical laws, should be what the state (or anyone else) uses to bring him down.

P.S.

If you need assistance dealing with the damage caused by the riots that resulted from this guys claims (as there inevitably is, when this happens), I think we have an aircraft carrier parked nearby that has a lot of drinking whater and bandages on it.

Feb 20, 2006 - 7:44 pm 4. onecent:

Not a good move imprisoning him. He should have been rendered an idiot in the forum of free speech.

So, is Austria gong to now try and convict their guest workers for the same speech?

Feb 20, 2006 - 7:56 pm 5. lindenen:

I don’t care what he says. It shouldn’t be legal to imprison someone for what is essentially a thought crime.

Onecent nailed the issue above me: he should have been rendered an idiot in the forum of free speech. They should have dragged his ass on tv, then proceeded to humiliate and mock him. This is how you handle creeps like that in a free society: Expose them for the liars they are.

Feb 20, 2006 - 8:02 pm 6. Patrick Tyson:

My apologies, Roger…

David Irving arrested at gunpoint in Austria

November 11, 2005

THE historian David Irving has been arrested at gunpoint while on a one-day visit to Vienna. An expert on Hitler’s Third Reich, he had been invited by courageous students to address an ancient University association in the Austrian capital.

He chose as his subject the secret negotiations between Adolf Eichmann and the Jewish leaders in Budapest, Joel Brand and Rezs?sztner, the so-called “trucks for Jews” deal, and British knowledge of the scheme from codebreaking. He has researched the topic extensively in Allied archives for both his Churchill and his Himmler biographies.

Despite precautions, the Austrian political police are believed to have learned of the visit by wiretaps or intercepting e-mails.

It is now known that the trial will be held before an 8-man jury and three judges (President : Dr Peter Liebetreu) on February 20 (9am) at the Large Criminal Court, Vienna, Wichenburg gasse 22. Mr Irving has been charged under section 3g of the Verbotsgesetz, Austria’s equivalent of Germany’s law for the suppression of free speech. This unique law provides for sentences of 1-20 years. Mr Irving is accused of having expressed an illegal opinion during two lectures in Austria in November 1989, 16 years ago. He has visited Austria on more than one occasion since then. Any sentence handed down by the Court will immediately be appealed to the European Court of Human Rights by Mr Irving’s well-known and formidable lawyer Dr Elmar Kresbach.

Mr Irving sends New Year’s best wishes to his readers and grateful thanks to his supporters for their good wishes and kind donations; both much needed.

Please note that the trial may run over to February 21st, 2006.

Urgent appeal for funds to assist Mr Irving and his family: Click this link to donate or mail to Bente Hogh, 8 Queen Anne’s Gate, London, SW1H 9AA. Cheques should be addressed to Parforce UK Ltd or David Irving, US cheques should be made payable to Focal Point Publications.

I won’t be donating and it’s fine by me that the Austrians enforced their laws and it’s fine by me that the “historian” will be appealing his sentence to the European Court of Human Rights. In fact, to borrow a phrase of the day: It’s all good.

Feb 20, 2006 - 8:25 pm 7. Kevin Peters:

Roger:
This guy is scum. But thought crimes are just what they sound like. The first sign of a police state. This just makes him a martyr to his twisted set of oedipal fans.

Feb 20, 2006 - 8:26 pm 8. chuck:

+1 for free speech. This sort of thing is not good for Europe. First they came for the Holocaust denier… but eventually they will come for the cartoonists. Free speech of this sort is not negotiable. Hell, England didn’t even imprison Oswald Mosley until May, 1940. Now *there* is civilizational confidence.

Feb 20, 2006 - 8:30 pm 9. Insufficiently Sensitive:

I’m shocked to be in agreement with every comment to date, but yea and verily they are right.

This bozo has already gotten more free publicity for his mushbrained ‘intellectual activities’ than anyone deserves – but that’s my opinion. No gummint-sponsored pillorying – verbal, sarcastic, physical, mocking, the stocks, the bastinado, whatever – will show him up as any more stupid than he already is. Merciless daylight, and a swarm of verbal Davids in refutation, are the only cure.

Feb 20, 2006 - 8:30 pm 10. scribe10:

What is there left to say?

I was glad to read that Irving finally owned up to the awful reality of the Holocaust. Judging from his comments I don’t think he still graps its true meaning.

I am not sure, though, that sentencing him to three years in jail is useful at this time.

As for free speech I am a free speech supporter who thinks in terms of “buts.”

Just as I would not allow a Jihadists to the joys of suicide bombings so would I not allow Holocaust deniers the right to preach their creed in Austria and Germany.

I wouldn’t criminalize it in the US, though.

Feb 20, 2006 - 9:35 pm 11. Paul:

“Mr Irving is accused of having expressed an illegal opinion”.

The idea that an OPINION can be illegal is simply overwhelming to me.

As idiotic and repugnant as this man’s opinions might be, they are no more so than a large proportion of the rantings on The Daily Kos or DU, the denizens of which I suspect would be quite at home with the notion of illegal opinions, and the vigorous prosecution of the purveyors of said opinions, were they ever to hold the reigns of power.

Feb 20, 2006 - 9:38 pm 12. WichitaBoy:

So, is Austria gong to now try and convict their guest workers for the same speech?

Naaa, the laws are only for human beings.

Feb 20, 2006 - 9:55 pm 13. WichitaBoy:

The idea that an OPINION can be illegal is simply overwhelming to me.

Welcome to the world outside the US of A.

Feb 20, 2006 - 9:56 pm 14. adhoc:

This is not just about free speech and opinion.
David Irving committed fraud repeatedly by falsifying historical evidence, as was demonstrated extensively by his losing the libel action he brought to *try and silence* Professor Deborah Lipstadt.

He not only deliberately and repeatedly falsified historical evidence and misrepresented historical documents in his books, but he used that as a basis for his campaigns on behalf of racist and pro-Nazi groups.

He claims he has now accepted that he has changed his mind about Holocaust denial. Yet on his web site, he continues to peddle the same lying books,and to run a newsletter full of anti-semitic and Holocaust-denying slurs and innuendoes.

He was a fraud and a confidence trickster in 1989, and he’s a fraud and a confidence trickster to this day.

He deserves what he got.

http://adloyada.typepad.com/adloyada/2006/02/bbc_soft_soaps__1.html

http://adloyada.typepad.com/adloyada/2006/02/bbc_soft_soaps_.html

Feb 20, 2006 - 10:58 pm 15. Paul:

“The idea that an OPINION can be illegal is simply overwhelming to me.

Welcome to the world outside the US of A.”

Well WB, I expect this from authoritarian and totalitarian states, and of course anywhere Sharia law is in effect, but I find it more than a little disturbing that Western democracies condone such a concept.

Feb 20, 2006 - 11:03 pm 16. Erik:

Whenever I hear a story like this, I remember Socrates being convicted and having to drink poison for stating his opinion.
Irwing is far from being a Socrates, but sooner or later, there will be another Socrates being convicted for something he/she said, that is not accepted in the current society. And until then, there will be lots of Socrates’ not wanting to speak up, for fear of the consequences.

adhoc,
if he uses fraudulent data, and is a trickster, then they should show that and convict him of fraud. Nothing is stopping them from doing that, and I would consider it a great service to society if they do so. But not to convict him simply for having an illegal opinion.

I ran across a european blog the other day where a commenter argued about another public person something like “what he says is such rubbish, and so wrong, that I should not have to spend the time and energy to argue against it, it should just be censored instead”.

That kind of attitude to free speech is scary, and seems to be coming more and more common. There’s de facto no *free* speech, there’s “allowed speech”, you’re allowed to speak freely, but you know you might be in trouble if you have the wrong opinion, so keep a low profile or else…
In time, more and more will be “the wrong opinion”.

Personally, I’m looking into the job market across the atlantic…

Feb 20, 2006 - 11:54 pm 17. David Thomson:

ìNormally I’m a Free Speech extremist, but I can’t seem to muster up much sympathy for this creep.î

The hell with David Irving. It is the precious principle of free speech that we should be worrying about. The baby has just been thrown out with the bath water. We all suffer when the discussion of ideas is restricted. This decision by an Austrian court is a tragedy—and also inevitably sends a sharp chill down the backs of those Europeans arguing against Islamic nihilism. Irving should not spend even one second of his life in jail for expressing his nonsense. His vile beliefs should instead be defeated in the public square.

Feb 21, 2006 - 3:46 am 18. larry:

The most offensive speech is most in need of protection. POTUS and US DOS need to quickly condemn this. (..need quickly to condemn? *^&*^** infinitives!)

Feb 21, 2006 - 5:30 am 19. BarCodeKing:

The dude’s obviously a creep, but that along with holding politically incorrect opinions shouldn’t be enough to be thrown into the slammer. The Thought Police are alive and well and living in central Europe. It’s too bad that they didn’t learn the proper lessons from that unpleasantness sixty years ago: “Thought Police bad, free speech good.”

And yup, this makes me even happier to be living in the U.S.A., where you have the right to hold and express whatever opinion you please, no matter how heinous and offensive.

Feb 21, 2006 - 6:52 am 20. markus:

I’m glad to see a lot of people who I normally disagree with — David Thomson for instance — coming down firmly on the side of free speech.

The timing could not be worse. It shows the Muslim extremists that European claims to defend free speech in the context of the Danish cartoons are so much hot air. Evidently, certain groups are exempt from defamation, other groups are not. When confronted with this hypocrisy, the reaction will be predictable: to extend censorship to anti-Muslim speech.

Feb 21, 2006 - 7:34 am 21. Knucklehead:

I’ll join the others in placing Irving way down the list of people I’m likely to develope the sorrowful sniffles about. The dope picked fights he should have avoided. He knew full well the Austrians, as dumb as they may be in this matter, had an arrest warrant out for him and laws that could wind his sorry, bigotted arse in prison.

He made a play to get his audience to send him money while he cooled his heels getting food and shelter on the public’s dime. Whether or not he’ll make a buck on this remains to be seen. He could have tried making a buck writing some mea culpa books telling the world why he and the other bigots who were his audience are wrong.

Which brings me to Snippet’s points.

Prove him wrong with a whole bunch of facts and stuff. Use public money, even.

Regardless of whether public money is used (and it is) to develop the “bunch of facts” and make them public, idiocies such as holocaust denial can never be put to bed. A few seconds with google or some other search engine easily demonstrates that there always has been, and always will be, and audience for this tripe.

The European laws are yet another Euro attempt to accomplish the impossible. They seem to believe they can stamp out such idiocy as holocaust denial (and probably hope to wipe out all forms of holocaust discussion) by writing laws.

There is no way to stamp out the twisted mental machinations of people determined to ignore evidence and twist silliness into convoluted conspiracy theories. The Illuminati will always exist. The Templars will always hidden evidence the Vatican wants to destroy.

Unfortunately this sort of thing goes something close to mainstream from time to time. BDS is a great example. It isn’t enough that the other party, lead by a man with whom one might disagree on important matters, won elections. It has to be a deep, dark, nefarious conspiracy.

The battle against this sort of thing can never be won but it must always be engaged.

If he’s right, then he’s got a hell of a story. If he’s wrong, then facts, rather than stupid and hypocritical laws, should be what the state (or anyone else) uses to bring him down.

Feb 21, 2006 - 7:51 am 22. ptiusa:

Criminalization of thought and ideas is nearer (geographically) than you may think. Holocaust denial can be a criminal offense in CANADA. Ernst Zundel was prosecuted by the Crown in 1988 for publication of pamphlets denying the Holocaust, under section 177 of the Canadian Criminal Code which states that it is a criminal offense for anyone to promote hatred which he knows is false and which also causes injury to the public interest. Zundel was found guilty at both trials, and the second one specified that he spread hatred deliberately. James Keegstra was similarly prosecuted in Canada for a criminal offense.

Feb 21, 2006 - 7:59 am 23. markus:

David Irving’s website contains an interesting article by Christopher Hitchens, from 1996, more or less defending this same “psychopathic anti-Semite”.

http://www.fpp.co.uk/StMartinsPress/Hitchens0696.html

His last sentence says it all, I think: “Currently…there is a taboo. And who really believes that if it were lifted any honest person would be the loser?”

Feb 21, 2006 - 8:01 am 24. RogerA:

Wow–near total agreement that irrespective of what Mr. Irving said, free speech is a value to be respected–The Austrians are to be condemned, and I would hope the EU weighs in on this–Austrians, as well as Europeans (of all nationalities and ethnic persuasions) should be very very afraid right now.

Feb 21, 2006 - 8:02 am 25. waterdragon52:

I’m with Patrick Tyson on this. As Deborah Lipstadt said in an interview on the Feb. 20 CBC radio program “As it Happens”, although she is not a fan of laws against Holocaust denial and jailing deniers, Austria was a special case because of its prominent contribution to the Holocaust and Irving got what he deserved for intentionally trying to contravene Austrian laws and for offering the patently phony “recant” to the court, replete with incorrect dates (shades of his failed libel suit against Lipstadt).

Roger says only jail fraudsters. Irving’s suit against Lipstadt was a fraud as the British judges found he completely distorted historic facts to try to make his case.

Feb 21, 2006 - 8:10 am 26. Knucklehead:

Waterdragon,

To the best of my understanding Irving was “driven into bankruptcy” but never fully paid the settlement the courts found against him. If I’m incorrect about that I’m willing to see evidence to the contrary.

So the fraud he was committing was, in fact, uncovered but only because he was dumb enough to sue Lipstadt in England.

There is no mechanism to uncover and prosecute fraud in the sense of historical writings. Other historians can do the sort of thing Lipstadt did but they are the ones subject to civil prosecution for doing so should folks like Irving be dumb enough to sue them.

If there was a mechanism to uncover and prosecute the sorts of fraud Irving committed we’d be jailing a whole lot of “social scientists” and “education researchers”.

What needs to happen is for many areas of what passes for academic activity to recover themselves and start publicly shaming the likes of Irving and other frauds. But that would interfere with their social[ist] agendas and clean an awful lot of houses they’ve grown quite accustomed to living in.

Feb 21, 2006 - 8:24 am 27. neo-neocon:

I agree that Holocaust denial should not be criminalized. But I also think there’s a stronger case to be made for the other side–its criminalization–than I previously thought.

I explore both sides of the question in this post on the subject, “We didn’t start the fire: should Holocaust denial be criminalized?”

Like most things, the debate was more complex than it seemed at first blush.

Feb 21, 2006 - 10:35 am 28. Always right:

People here have already said most of what I was going to say. However, I noticed nobody picked up on the following point:

Despite precautions, the Austrian political police are believed to have learned of the visit by wiretaps or intercepting e-mails.

Here we have the “political police” (What the heck is that?) intercepting regular Univ student organization(s) and foreign individuals’ exchange. The “political police” don’t even have to have proof of terrorism-ties or sympathies. In fact, I don’t even know how enthusiastic the Austrians’ stand on GWoT, but now we know “All your thoughts belong to me (the Big Brother)”.

Feb 21, 2006 - 12:45 pm 29. Knucklehead:

Always Right,

Good catch! The Leftoids who want the Euro-welfare state are the same ones who don’t want surveillance in the US but are not the least bit interested in the fact that wiretaps and other electronic surveillance are carried out in Europe at levels beyond the worst of what they “fear” over here.

Feb 21, 2006 - 1:32 pm 30. PeterUK:

It is the hypocrasy of Austria which is quite amazing,Austria has never come to terms with its involvement with war crimes.Irving was a scapegoat of Biblical proportions,he was used to expiate Austria’s sins.
Whilst the odious creature is guilty of spewing his vile falsehoods,he is a Holocaust denier,Austria was complict in the Holocaust,something which never surfaced in this show trial.

Feb 21, 2006 - 2:18 pm 31. neo-neocon:

Actually, Knucklehead, it’s not just that there’s no mechanism to prosecute fraud in history writing. It’s also that some of Irving’s fraud would not have been discovered but for his suing Lipstadt, because he tended to cite sources that only he had access to. Although many historians had written Irving off even prior to the trial, it was difficult to document just how flawed his books were until he made the error of suing Lipstadt and allowing her lawyers to get hold of his papers as part of the liberal discovery process that exists in Britain. This, in turn, allowed Evans, a historian hired by Lipstadt’s defense, to discover just what an egregious liar he was, even in his “history” books. See my previous post about the Lipstadt trial and Irving.

Feb 21, 2006 - 5:12 pm

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