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EU MAKES IT AGAINST LAW TO CONDONE GENOCIDEDAVID CHARTER IN LUXEMBOURG
Times Online, UK
April 20 2007
Condoning or "grossly trivialising" genocide will become a crime
punishable by up to three years in prison across Europe, although
justice ministers failed to agree a specific ban on denying the
Holocaust yesterday.
Germany used its presidency of the EU to push through the first
Europe-wide race-hate laws, regarded by Berlin as an historic
obligation in the 50th anniversary year of the union created to
preserve peace and prosperity after the Second World War.
Under pressure from nations worried about freedom of speech, led by
Britain, Germany scaled back ambitions to replicate its strict laws
of Holocaust denial and dropped plans to outlaw the display of Nazi
symbols at an EU level.
All 27 EU nations will be obliged to criminalise "publicly
condoning, denying or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes
against humanity and war crimes" but the test for prosecution was
set deliberately high to secure agreement in Luxembourg. Cases will
succeed only where "the conduct is carried out in a manner likely to
incite violence or hatred".
The definition of genocide will be that set at the Nuremberg trials
and by the International Criminal Court, meaning that it will include
Nazi crimes and those in Rwanda and Yugoslavia but not the Armenian
genocide - a definition disputed by Turkey.
Poland, Slovenia and the Baltic states lobbied hard for - but failed
to win - the inclusion of a crime of denying, condoning or trivialising
atrocities committed in the name of Joseph Stalin in the new law.
They did, however, secure a pledge that the European Commission would
prepare a Green Paper on 20th-century genocidal crimes and carry out
a review within two years on whether denying these should come under
the scope of the race-hate law.
This led to accusations that the EU was trying to rewrite history.
Graham Watson, MEP, leader of the Liberal group in the European
Parliament, said: "The EU has no business legislating on history. We
should leave that to historians and individual member states.
"Attempts to harmonise EU laws on hate crimes are both illiberal and
nonsensical. [This] risks opening the floodgates on a plethora of
historical controversies . . . whose inclusion could pose a grave
threat to freedom of speech."
Franco Frattini, the European Justice Commissioner, said: "We have
proposed public hearings and I propose to involve all stakeholders,
including historians. The final result should be to improve public
awareness, especially for younger people and students. We do not
want to rewrite history. History is history." The EU-wide crime of
inciting violence or hatred against a person's race, colour, religion,
descent or national or ethnic origin agreed yesterday will result in
conviction only where there is "intentional conduct".
Officials said there would be no change in British law, where there
are already penalties of up to seven years for inciting racial hatred
under the Religious and Racial Hatred Act of 2006, which was used as
a model for the final EU text.
Britain also pushed successfully to ensure that religious attacks
would be covered only if they were of a racist or xenophobic nature,
so that criticism of Islam or other faiths would not automatically
fall under the new measures.
Times Online, UK
April 20 2007
Condoning or "grossly trivialising" genocide will become a crime
punishable by up to three years in prison across Europe, although
justice ministers failed to agree a specific ban on denying the
Holocaust yesterday.
Germany used its presidency of the EU to push through the first
Europe-wide race-hate laws, regarded by Berlin as an historic
obligation in the 50th anniversary year of the union created to
preserve peace and prosperity after the Second World War.
Under pressure from nations worried about freedom of speech, led by
Britain, Germany scaled back ambitions to replicate its strict laws
of Holocaust denial and dropped plans to outlaw the display of Nazi
symbols at an EU level.
All 27 EU nations will be obliged to criminalise "publicly
condoning, denying or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes
against humanity and war crimes" but the test for prosecution was
set deliberately high to secure agreement in Luxembourg. Cases will
succeed only where "the conduct is carried out in a manner likely to
incite violence or hatred".
The definition of genocide will be that set at the Nuremberg trials
and by the International Criminal Court, meaning that it will include
Nazi crimes and those in Rwanda and Yugoslavia but not the Armenian
genocide - a definition disputed by Turkey.
Poland, Slovenia and the Baltic states lobbied hard for - but failed
to win - the inclusion of a crime of denying, condoning or trivialising
atrocities committed in the name of Joseph Stalin in the new law.
They did, however, secure a pledge that the European Commission would
prepare a Green Paper on 20th-century genocidal crimes and carry out
a review within two years on whether denying these should come under
the scope of the race-hate law.
This led to accusations that the EU was trying to rewrite history.
Graham Watson, MEP, leader of the Liberal group in the European
Parliament, said: "The EU has no business legislating on history. We
should leave that to historians and individual member states.
"Attempts to harmonise EU laws on hate crimes are both illiberal and
nonsensical. [This] risks opening the floodgates on a plethora of
historical controversies . . . whose inclusion could pose a grave
threat to freedom of speech."
Franco Frattini, the European Justice Commissioner, said: "We have
proposed public hearings and I propose to involve all stakeholders,
including historians. The final result should be to improve public
awareness, especially for younger people and students. We do not
want to rewrite history. History is history." The EU-wide crime of
inciting violence or hatred against a person's race, colour, religion,
descent or national or ethnic origin agreed yesterday will result in
conviction only where there is "intentional conduct".
Officials said there would be no change in British law, where there
are already penalties of up to seven years for inciting racial hatred
under the Religious and Racial Hatred Act of 2006, which was used as
a model for the final EU text.
Britain also pushed successfully to ensure that religious attacks
would be covered only if they were of a racist or xenophobic nature,
so that criticism of Islam or other faiths would not automatically
fall under the new measures.