Herewith, as Part VII, a brief survey of censorship laws and practices in Spain, Britain and Canada - with Part VIII, tomorrow, summarizing yet one more time the decades-long persecution of one German-Canadian known as the "impresario of Revisionism", Ernst Zundel:
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Other Countries
Until 1995, Spain was a popular refuge for dissidents facing prosecution elsewhere in Europe but in that year it passed new laws putting it firmly in the camp of the censors. The first conviction came in November, 1998, when bookseller Pedro Varela was sentenced to five years in jail for "incitement to racial hatred" and "denying or justifying genocide." His case began in December, 1996, when police raided his Librerķa Europa bookstore in Barcelona and confiscated 20,000 volumes. Nearly two years went by before he went to trial because many of the books were in English, French, or German, and the court insisted that they be translated into Spanish. In addition to the five-year prison term, the court fined him 720,000 pesetas ($5,000) and ordered all 20,000 books burned-even though only 30 of some 200 titles were found to violate the law.
In December 1998, Mr. Varela appealed the sentence to the provincial court or Audencia of Catalonia, which ruled unanimously in April 1999 that the censorship law violates guarantees of free expression in the Spanish constitution. The case will now go before the Constitutional Tribunal in Madrid. In the meantime, Mr. Varela's 20,000 volumes have not yet been burned, but he has not gotten them back either. He restocked his store and continued to operate, but in January 1999, a mob of "anti-fascists" smashed through the protective metal shutters of his shop, ransacked it, and burned hundreds of books. Police arrived but did nothing. Mr. Varela rebuilt his store and continues to sell books.
In Britain, despite campaign promises from Tony Blair that Labour would ban Holocaust denial, in early 2000 Parliament resisted pressure from Jewish groups to do so. Home Office Minister Mike O'Brien explained that the government was unable to "strike a balance between outlawing such offensive statements while ensuring that freedom of speech is not unduly restricted." Since 1986 the Public Order Act has made incitement to racial hatred an offense, but Jewish groups argued this law was inadequate because prosecutors have been unable to show that Holocaust denial incites hatred. This is not to say that these laws have never been used. Although enforcement is sporadic, a few racial nationalists have been convicted.
Originally prosecutors had to prove a defendant intended to stir up hatred, but that was difficult. Later the laws were broadened to permit conviction if hatred was stirred up whatever the intent, but that was also hard to prove. Now, it is sufficient to show a "likelihood" that some act will incite racial hatred, and it was on this basis that Spearhead editor John Tyndall and British Nationalist editor John Morse were tried together and convicted by a single jury in 1986. The prosecution's tactic was to read page after page of "offensive" material in court and the cumulative effect seems to have convinced the jury what they wrote was "likely" to incite hatred. The judge decided the crime deserved six months in jail. Mr. Tyndall, who after serving his sentence returned to editing Spearhead, despises incitement laws but believes they have the beneficial effect of keeping racial nationalists from using intemperate-and ultimately unpersuasive-language.
Nick Griffin, now head of the British National Party, received a suspended sentence after a similar conviction in 1998. He also edited a magazine, which discussed Holocaust revisionism and opposed non-white immigration to Britain. In his case as well, there seems to have been no clear line between acceptable and unacceptable opinions; his magazine apparently created an overall atmosphere that was "likely" to incite hatred.
Some British anti-racism measures approach outright insanity. As reported in the July 2000 issue of AR, a recently-passed law forbidding "racially threatening or abusive words" was recently invoked against a Cambridge man who got into a whispered argument in a library. A woman overheard Robert Birchall tell Kenyan-born Mugai Mbaya to "go back to your own country," and reported him to police. Mr. Birchall was fined 100 pounds. In the city of Glouc-ester police officers are reported to have been sent to eat in ethnic restaurants and listen in on the conversations of other patrons so they can charge them with crimes if they say rude things about other races.
Perhaps even more than to Europeans, Americans feel kin to Canadians and perhaps Australians-fellow English-speakers who have established themselves far from the homeland. But here, too, traditions of free speech have crumbled under the pressure of special-interest groups. In October 2000, the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission ordered Frederick Toben-back from prison in Germany-to remove Holocaust revisionist material from the web page of the Adelaide Institute. Commissioner Kathleen McEvoy said Mr. Toben violated the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act by "having published materials inciting hatred against the Jewish people." She also ordered Mr. Toben to post a lengthy apology. Mr. Toben refused, saying he would not apologize for material he believed to be factual and that any proceeding against him was immoral if truth was not permitted as a defense. The government-funded commission has no enforcement powers, but could initiate proceedings to have Mr. Toben jailed for contempt.
In Tasmania, the commission has also accused an associate of the Adelaide Institute, 58-year-old Olga Scully, of selling anti-Jewish material and putting it in mailboxes. She also refused to apologize, and the commission announced plans to take her to court. The Russian-born grandmother says she is not intimidated and is "quite prepared" to go to prison.
It will be a surprise to many Americans to know that our next-door-neighbor Canada now has a nearly 20-year tradition of censorship. In 1981 a well-liked secondary school teacher and mayor in Lacombe County, Alberta, named Jim Keegstra was reported to be telling his social studies students that Jews run the world. The school board fired him-which it no doubt had the right to do-but Canadian authorities also charged him with violating section 281 of the criminal code, which prohibits spreading hate against an identifiable group. Mr. Keegstra remained unrepentant during a ten-year legal battle that took him to the Canadian Supreme Court, which upheld his conviction.
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Tomorrow: Part VIII
This 9-part ZGram is brought to you, courtesy of American Renaissance, a print magazine that maintains a website at http://www.amren.com/
Thought for the Day:
"Some 60 percent of Germans surveyed feel neither guilty nor responsible for the Holocaust, and 45 percent said they are tired of being confronted with the Nazi past, according to a new poll. The survey, published in Der Spiegel magazine, also had 28 percent saying Hitler would have been a great statesman had he not instigated World War II and the Holocaust."
(JTA | News at a Glance | May 06, 2001 1)
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