Sentencing Holocaust Denier in Germany

On Thursday, February 15, Das Mannheimer Landgericht (The Mannheim’s State Court) has sentenced Ernst Zuendel, a leading German Holocaust denier and publisher of Neonazi works (both in print and online) or as more technically said "a historical revisionist" to five years imprisonment. I watched some scenes of the court in the ZDF Night News. Zuendel had five attorneys with himself for this trial. When Judge read the verdict, Zuendel showed no emotion. He was only nodding occasionally. Zuendel was the publisher of works such as "Did six million really die?” This sentence is the maximum allowed under section 130 of the German Penal Code for the crime of Holocaust denial after being found guilty on 14 counts of incitement. One of the charges involved offense and slander to the memory of the dead.

Born in Germany's Black Forest region, Mr Zuendel left the country as a 19-year-old, emigrated to Canada in 1958. He spent the next two decades in Canada, where he began publishing neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic literature through his Samisdat Publishers Ltd., according to the U.S. Anti-Defamation League's Web site. The conviction will be regarded as a success for authorities who sought to prosecute people who post denials of the Holocaust on Internet sites available in Germany.

Zuendel was extradited from Canada to face trial in Germany in 2005. Through a special judicial cooperation, the German prosecutors could seek his extradition on the ground that a Web site he ran was accessible in Germany. Of course, in February 2005, a Canadian judge ruled that Zuendel's activities were not only a threat to national security, but the international community of nations as well. So Zuendel was deported a few days later.

It should be noted that a Canadian law, passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, allows the government to hold terrorism suspects without charge, based on secret evidence that does not have to be disclosed to a suspect or his defense.

Zuendel, 67, has been in custody in Germany since March 2005 after being deported from Canada. Until the final conviction the court would not release him on bail because of the danger he would flee.

The section130.3 prohibits denial or playing down of the genocide committed under the National Socialist regime, including through dissemination of publications (§130.4).Under this section any public denial or gross trivialization of international crimes, especially genocide like Holocaust is punishable. He was accordingly convicted to this punishment for inciting racial hatred and denying that the Nazis killed millions of Jews in WWII.

The German Judge called him as “racist agitator” that can be well translated in Farsi as (Mofsed-e Nejaparasty). Furfther, the judge, Ulrich Meinerzhagen, while describing him as "dangerous offender, a rabble-rouser and haranguer, admirer of Adolf Hitler" with a "deep hate towards everything Jewish", handed down the harshest possible sentence because the state had "the right and the duty to protect the basic principles of the law", according to SPIEGEL ONILNE. Interestingly, his advocates who had filled the court hall called him as “Martyr of Freedom of Expression” and “Martyr of Third German Reich”.

Also the prosecutor, Andreas Grossmann, said Zuendel's claim that the Holocaust never happened earned him the title of "political conman" and that his views were dangerous to Germans. One of his attorneys accused the Mannheim state court of not wanting to face a ``scientific analysis'' of the Holocaust and charged that prosecutors - one of whom has termed Zuendel a “rat catcher” - had defamed his client.

By referring to Zuendel's work Did Six Million Really Die? the prosecution accused him of using "pseudo-scientific methods" in an attempt to overturn the accepted facts on the Holocaust. This new hate crime case follows another high-profile case in which controversial British historian David Irving spent 13 months in jail in Austria for questioning the Holocaust before being released last month.

Der Spiegel Online by reporting about long lectures of Zuendel’s attorneys, particularly by hic neo Nazy defense Jürgen Rieger, who used the court hall to deny the Holocaust in details before the public, critically asks if the criminalization of holocaust denial, as a special German law character, really produces what was wanted to prevent, i.e. preventing a platform for Neonazis! (Spiegel text that I hope being accurately translated: „Aus seiner Sicht macht das Sinn. Der Prozess gegen Ernst Zuendel stellt deswegen erneut die Frage, ob die Strafbarkeit der Leugnung des Holcaust, ein Sondermerkmal deutscher Rechtsprechung, nicht genau das hervorbringt, was sie eigentlich verhindern soll: Eine Plattform für die Neonazis“). In my view, however, when we observe that Racist attacks and neo-Nazi activities are on the increase in Germany, according to figures released by the government, this kind of criminalization might makes sense. It can be regarded as last resort method that under current situation the German criminal justice is forced to have it available.

It is here probably useful to note that for almost six years there are attempts over different proposals for an EU-wide, anti-racism law which would include harmonized rules on helping punish Holocaust denial. Now, Germany in its turn, as the current presidency of the EU, has prepared a new proposal. The German proposal also seeks to criminalize racist declarations that are an incitement to violence against a specific person or group. The aim of the plan is to harmonize national legal systems in their approach to combating racism and xenophobia. "All states feel that ... Europe must give a clear message that we will not tolerate, and want to combat racism and xenophobia," German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries told a news conference. But while being unanimous in their condemnation of those who deny the Holocaust, EU leaders are split over whether to criminalize such acts.

It seems Germany envisions a common EU law as a moral obligation but countries like Britain, Italy and Denmark have resisted common rules as a violation of civil liberties. Still, Italy voted to ban it Thursday.

Anyway, the proposal as expected caused heated debate over freedom of speech. It seems there is a long-standing difference between countries such as Denmark that favors an imperative on freedom of expression and those like Germany that has serious social problem with racist groups and therefore have come to criminalized Holocaust denial. Clearly, Germany looks at this proposal as a historic duty to harmonize EU rules for dealing with claims the massacre of Jews by Nazi Germany never took place, as well as racism in general.

Laws against denying the Holocaust currently exist in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and Spain. The UN General Assembly is also expected to vote on a resolution condemning such speech soon. Also in a new development, in 2006 France’s legislature considered criminalizing denial of the Armenian genocide, but hardly because there was a live prospect of repetition, much less in France. Also in 2006, a Belgian cabinet minister proposed a denial law for the Rwandan genocide.

Comparative View: Hate Crime and the Case of Cockroach Cartoons in Iran

Lastly and comparatively we can refer to the case of sensational Cockroach Cartoon in an Iranian Weekly called Iran Friday, on May 24, 2005. This cartoon led to wide and violent demonstrations and several days of riots in Turkish provinces of Iran, northwestern Azerbaijan. The state-owned newspaper Iran was suspended on May 23 after publishing this cartoon that apparently offended Azeris. Reportedly many were wounded and more than 64 peoples were arrested during this ethnic protest against the Cartoon.

Immediately, the Press Supervisory Board at the Press and Information Department of the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry shut down the Iran Daily. Saeed Mortazavi, the Chief Prosecutor of Tehran ordered the arrests of cartoonist and editor in chief of the Daily and has indicted Iran's publisher to a hearing. The charges were "publishing provocative materials, creating division among sects of society and insulting the Azeri-speaking people. The cartoon that caused the stir showed a boy repeating the Persian word for cockroach in different ways while the uncomprehending bug says “What?” in Azeri. It should be noted the Azeris of northwestern Iran speak a language related to Turkish. Azeris, who make up 25 percent of the population, have many luminaries among Iran’s commercial elite but Iran’s majority Persians often mock them in their jokes.

Iranian criminal law has not only no provisions regarding hate crimes, rather it has some provisions that justify/mitigate gender and religiously motivated offenses (e.g Articles 226 & 630 of the IPC 1991). But the case of cockroach cartoon in addition to a previous similar violent case in Khozestan concerning a letter attributed to a member of Khatamy cabinet containing insults against Arabs, has motivated the Islamic Assembly (Majlis) members to propose a new bill in order to amend the IPC 1991 by introduction of a new category of offenses to criminalize ethnically hate crimes. This bill which has 6 articles adds a new Chapter to the IPC including Articles 730 to 735. The article 730 states “whoever publicly insults Iranian ethnicities, their legitimate and Islamic cultures, language, customs and rituals will be sentenced from three months to three years according to the severity of case”. For the full text of bill click below!

Offences_related_to_insulting_iranian_ethnicities_amending_the_islamic_penal_code.pdf

Useful Sources and Links:

• An open letter by Iranian writers, academics and artists protesting the Holocaust Conference in Tehran
  
• An insightful article by Iranian leading intellectual; M. Nikfar, on immoral aspects of Holocaust denial is available Download aspects_of_denial_of_holocaust.doc
• For a comprehensive report in Farsi about the history of Holocaust deniers and their current status in Germany see this article by Mr M Kazemi, an PhD candidate in history at University of Freiburg see here
  
• Here also you can find a history of Holocaust in Farsi
• Dissertation: Strafrechtliche Reaktionen auf rechtsextremistisch / fremdenfeindlich motivierte Gewalttaten – Das amerikanische „hate crime“ Konzept und seine Übertragbarkeit auf das deutsche Rechtssystem
• The Criminology Department of the MPI focuses on comparative perspectives of hate crimes and recently has made a publication titled Hate Crimes and Law Enforcement in Germany and in the United States
  
• Focus on Holocaust, a collection of news, memorial reports, comments and analyisis  see here
  
• Hate Crime in Wikipedia
  
• Anti-Defamation League
• US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division, Uniform Crime Reports
  
• HateWatch
• Southern Poverty Law Center
• Bundeskriminalamt (Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office)
• The New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project
• Hate Crimes Research Network
• Ausführliche Informationen des National Criminal Justice Reference Service des US-amerikanischen Justizministeriums zum Thema Hasskriminalität
• Das Uniform Crime Reporting Program der US-amerikanischen Bundespolizei enthält Statistiken zu dem Phänomen der Hasskriminalität

Comments

[Mohammad Reza Kazemi]

Hi, vielen Dank für den interessanten Artikel! Ich glaube, der Zündel hat es verdient und bin mir sicher, er wird seine neonazistische Aktivitäten fortsetzen, wenn er aus dem Gefängnis raus ist.Außerdem kann er gut mit Ahmadniedschad zusammenarbeiten, die beiden wollen eine Untersuchungskommission für Holocaust!!!