News from the New Party

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Holocaust denial and the incitement of religious hatred

When is a genocide not a genocide? Thanks to Melanie Phillips for bringing to our attention this Financial Times article on a newly proposed EU law aimed ostensibly at criminalising Holocaust denial throughout the European Union. Holocaust denial is already a crime in several EU member states and this proposal would extend the principle across the continent. There are a number of striking features to the proposed new law, however. First of all, according to the FT report, the law is intended to apply only to the Nazi mass murder of Jews during World War II, and the Rwanda genocide of 1994. However, several EU diplomats have stated that the new legislation would not penalise denial of the Armenian genocide of 1915-1917 carried out by Ottoman troops, which is denied by the Turkish government itself.

No doubt the realpolitik behind distinctions of this type is thought to be justifiable in view of the broader principle at stake. Unfortunately, what this broader principle might be is difficult to ascertain. Certainly there are good reasons why many European countries have criminalised holocaust denial (i.e. denial of the Nazi genocide of the Jews), since modern holocaust denial is not so much an argument of historical interpretation, as an allegation of an international Jewish conspiracy to slander the Nazis: in other words, holocaust denial is explicitly an anti-semitic activity. The appalling events in Rwanda and Armenia (and indeed, other similar incidents) should never be trivialised - but horrific as they were, they are not politically explosive in the same way as denial of the World War II holocaust undoubtedly is. Anyone who doubts this should spend some time considering the expressed opinions of President Ahmedinejad and his colleagues.

The small print of the new law is the real key, here. The point of the law is much broader than the criminalisation of holocaust denial. What the EU lawmakers have in view is something much broader and potentially dangerous to freedom of expression. The FT reports:

The latest draft, seen by the Financial Times, will make it mandatory for all Union member states to punish public incitement “to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin”.

The intention is clearly to combine legislation against Holocaust Denial with a prohibition akin to our own incitement to racial hatred legislation, and, crucially, a prohibition against incitement to religious hatred similar to that defeated (or more correctly, in Melanie Phillips words, neutered) in the UK following a fierce campaign of opposition in 2005. The prospect of the curtailment of essential debate on matters of public concern, not to mention the impact on freedom of religious belief and expression, which implementation of this new law would entail, should be a cause for real concern. This matter is too important to be smuggled into the country as a low-profile tweaking of EU regulations. On the contrary, it should be the subject of further, urgent public debate.

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Holocaust denial and the incitement of religious hatred