Strange Famous

There seems to be a lot of confusion about extradition treaties and international law...

Any country has to release somebody to the custody of another country unless they have good reason to believe they will face death or torture if they are released.

Of course, many countries dont obey these rules, Afghanistan clearly doesnt for example.

But is not relevant that Americans or Canadians allow holocaust denial, legally that is meaningless - he has committed a crime in Germany, and he must be deported to there, if Canada does not deport him then they are refusing to participate in the community of nations - Canada does not have the right to pass judgement on German law.

If however, a person is requested to be deported to a country where they may face death or torture (which is the case in America, which has a death penalty) - legally a country is entitled to withhold that person from American custody, to protect them from death.

I dont think this is the right thread to talk about freedom of speech, and why Americans care so deeply about a concept that most other nations do not - but there are very good reasons why denying the holocaust is a crime in Germany.

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

smooth

The only confusion is the inability to recognize that you aren't the world's moral arbiter. My country's values are different than yours.

I think this is the perfect place to speak about how highly I value freedom of speech.

My country values freedom of speech over your country's value of a convicted murderer's life.

I think that fining a person $1 dollar for making political speech is tantamount to torture--and my country agrees. According to the criteria you stated above, my country doesn't have to do jack shit (unless it chooses to, and it appears to have chosen to do so in this instance) about a torturous and barbaric law barring someone from denying the holocaust occurred.

I can't make it any more plain than that.

BTW, I looked it up and you are wrong in your interpretation of extradition procedures. Although a country might refuse "if the state asking for his extradition might impose a cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment on him," there is no legal exception to refuse extradition.
(http://www.csls.org.za/dw/art8h.html).

Specifically in death penalty cases, there is no international law banning capital punishment.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Lebell

I completely agree with you

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU!

Please Donate!

Strange Famous

well, there are two questions

Should holocaust denial be a crime? I believe it should.

Does Canada have the right not to extradite this man to Germany to face charges he has been found guilty of, in a legal, demoratic and liberal country? I do not believe they do.

This obsession with freedom of speech, what does it mean? Should I be allowed to yell "fire" in a crowded dark theater, cos I enjoy the idea of creating panic and injury in the fleeing crowd? That is free speech.

Should I be allowed to stand on the corner of the street and tell everyone that my high school teacher is a paedophile? That is a completely false statement, but I dont like him and I feel like saying it, should I be allowed to destroy this man's reputation and maybe his life, because I am free to say anything that I like?

Should Kerry be allowed to take out TV ad's and hire 15 actresses to all say that Bush raped them? This is free speech, who cares if it is a lie or a slander?

Should I be allowed to say all people of an ethnic group should be killed? Should I be allowed to say things which I know will incite and encourage violence against them? Should I be allowed to go to a town which has suffered a recent tragedy and tell them all it was this ethnic group who did it, to whip up hatrid that I know will lead to violence... this is free speech.

Should I be allowed to get a job as a teacher and then brainwash all the children to want to destroy America? If Im just talking to the, arent I free to do that?

A woman claims she has been raped by a famous NBA star... should I be allowed to publish her name, photo, address, tell everyone she is a dirty slut and tell everyone who loves this basketball team, "hey guys, if the victim isnt alive to testify there cant even be a case, here's the address the victim is at, here's all her details, dont you love your team? Dont you think this is girl is just doing it to get money? I do..." Is that free speech?

What does free speech mean? To me, a society where it is impossible to stop anyone from saying anything is just crazy. Words can incite violence, they can cause damage and harm, and people must be protected from the violence of words and mush as the violence of fists or knives or guns.

Denying the holocaust, in Germany, is a specific crime - Germany carries with it a specific guilt (as do many Poles, Hungarians, Estonians and so on who took part in it) for its past - the law against holocaust denial is a recognition of the past, a realisation that these things must never be allowed to happen again.

No one is saying this man should be forbidden from expressing his own idea's, but all holocaust deniers are liars, this is the fact, anyone with any ability to reason knows that it is a true occurance... what this law is saying is that you do not have the right to incite hatrid against people, you do not have the right to incite violence, you do not the right to deliberately denigrate a race of people, you do not have the right to escape from Germany's national trauma - this is the legacy, this is how the sins of the fathers are passed down to the sons, this is something that must not be forgotten, and to attempt to erase this from history through lies is a crime.

You know, we have to move beyond the whole "free speech is everything" mantra - I really dont believe that anyone believes people can be free to yell "fire" to make people hurt themselves, or to encourage people to commit murder... we have to say surely, that the free expression of ideology is one thing, but that there are things which people must be protected from. That just to let anyone damage, hurt, victimise or attack another person or group in any way that they like, and to let them do it just because it is only words... this cannot be the basis of a free society.

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

smooth

Are you done shotgunning irrelevent questions at me? Fifteen example when one would suffice isn't going to convince me.

You could just ask me if I thought people should be free to say whatever they want whereever they want.

I didn't say that. I made it pretty clear the value I was supporting was freedom of political speech.

But none of that is relevent because my point wasn't that my moral value is more important than yours. My point was to say that we each place a different value on something. I find it hypocritical to support one nation in denying an extradition agreement on a moral basis and not support my country's refusal to extradite for a legitimate moral reason.

I don't particularly care what Canada does at this point--that's not my country and I'm not saying what its people should or should not do. I didn't say that they should refuse to extradite him because of my country's value of freedom of expression. I said that my country could have refused and you should support our sovereign decision if we feel it violates our moral code.

I don't feel bad that you don't value speech as highly as I do. That's not going to change my mind on the subject, and neither are a series of rhetorical questions. I do feel upset that you respect Germany's decision to refuse to give us a convicted murderer because the people don't like the punishment, but you wouldn't have respected our decision if we had refused to send this guy because we don't like the punishment.

In fact, I think it's worse, because in both nations murder is a crime, but in this case only one nation thinks the behavior is a crime. So now you're actually infringing on another of our values: we don't support punishing people for behavior we don't think is criminal.

Now I'm confused in that I don't know which belief I value more--freedom of expression or that one ought not to be punished for behavior we don't think is criminal.

Both are written in our Constitution and form the heart of our identity--an identity you earlier claimed didn't actually exist.

There are some idiots out there who abuse their rights. But our rights do form the basis of a free society, most of us choose not to do stupid shit like yell fire in a crowded theatre. You think the law stops people from yelling that? It just punishes the people who do it, the people who don't choose not to do so on their own accord. Having this freedom comes responsibility and possible repurcussions of innocent people being harmed. That's the balance we constantly strive for in this nation. I'm not ready to move beyond the "free speech is everything" mantra, although I can see that you already have. That mantra was our single most important gift to the world--and I don't know any liberals who would disagree with that because it comes straight out of Enlightment thought.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

OFKU0

I'm not trying to be difficult here and I don't think that this is nitpicking, but what about those people who feel that the Holocaust was a strictly Jewish event. They don't deny that the Holocaust happen but rather exclude a large number of Holocaust victims, mainly non-Jewish Poles. Is that a form of Holocaust denial?

Yes Hitler targeted the Jews but also the non-Jewish Poles to the tune of, by most accurate sources 1.9 million. By many accounts, people seem to think the slaughter of non-Jewish Poles is in the 20,000 to 30,000 range. I have read that figure countless times in several publications when any discussion of the Holocaust is revisited. Maybe this is because the Poles were not strictly confined to the death camps but were also killed in the work camps or in fields at mass grave sites.

Again, I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass. I just think that to remember only the unfortunate Jewish people who were slaughtered and no one else is highly insensitive to all Holocaust victim's and survivers and families of those.

Anyone with free time can wade throught the myriad of sites by googling 'non-Jewish Holocaust victim's.'

__________________
" In Canada, you can tell the most blatant lie in a calm voice, and people will believe you over someone who's a little passionate about the truth." David Warren, Western Standard.

Strange Famous

More Chinese civilians were murdered by the Japanese army than Jews murdered by the Nazi's also, in my understanding.

I agree that we need to have more awareness of all of the mass killings that occured in this time - I would guess that one difficulty in viewing the massacre of the Pole's as a single event is that actually they were being massacred by two opposing armies... the Russian and the German.

I always remember something I read at uni (I dont have a source) about the massacre of 2000 Polish villagers and how the Germans were being tried for it at Nuremburg, but then they found out that actually the Red Army did it, so they just dropped it, no justice when the perpetrator is still strong...

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

theusername

Around 7 million chinese civilians were murdered. 6million Jews. 15 other million during the holocaust. This is not just about the Jews, WW2 and the holocaust is not just about the Jews. It's about Germany taking responsibility for the War they caused, which was what they did not do after WW1.

Germany has the right to make its own laws under its own system and Democratic Gov't. Just because we believe that freedom of speech should be allowed doesn't mean we should impose our belief, although i agree that restrictions on freedom of speech is wrong this is not the case in Germany.

And strange has a good point, do we really have freedom of speech? Write an article and make speeches on how Al Qaeda is a great organization see how soon it is before the authorities are investigating or spying on you.

__________________
?

neddy65

A few points:
1. Germany is not seeking extradition. I simply said that he would be jailed upon his return to Germany as he has been convicted in absetia.
2. he never lied about anything to gain citizenship, and that has no bearing on his status.
3.The Canadian government is holding him as a security risk, not because he personally poses a threat but because he could influence someone toward a violent act in the name of anti-semitism.
4.He does not deny that the Holocaust happened, only the scope.
I had hoped for a lively discussion and after a lull I got all that and more. I dislike the politics of this man and his beliefs but I do believe he is entitled to all the rights and freedoms we enjoy. If we inprison every person who espouses beliefs we do not hold, without first convicting them of a crime then we become a police state.
thank you all.

__________________
If you're travelling at the speed of light, and you turn the headlights on, do they do anything?

My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die!

Drink Dickens' Hard Cider because nothing makes a girl smile like a Hard DIckens' Cider!

Speed_Gibson

it is truly idiotic to deny that the holocaust happened, but I take issue at the bullshit six million figure that is always touted. (edit: just read the post above mine again and I see that the phrase "Holocaust Denial" is inaccurate when applied to the subject of the thread)

and it is truly sad that Stalin is not more reviled than he is for causing the death of 70 million* of his citizens through his own insane paranoia.


*top of my head, might be a tiny bit high or low

__________________
Started talking to yourself I see.
Yes, it's the only way I can be certain of an intelligent conversation.

Black Adder

KnifeMissile

While, strictly speaking, what I'm about to say has little to do with this thread, I will say it, anyways, because it was touched upon, here, and we might find it interesting.

While Canada has hate crimes that would be protected under freedom of speech in the USA, don't think that that automatically makes the US of A the champion of personal expression. I've got one word for anyone who thinks this--obscenity...