My best friend's father
 

My best friend's father is a holocaust denier. His politics suck, in my opinion but here is the rub, even though he has never been convicted of a crime in Canada, the govt took away his citizenship and tried to send him back to Germany.
A little history, he has resided in Canada for almost 40 years and once ran for the leadership of the liberal party in Ont. He has been brought up on hate crime charges several times and has won every case. 3 or 4 years ago the govt revoked his citizenship and made plans to send him to Germany where he has been convicted of hate crimes in absentia. My friend's father went to Kentucky instead and lived quietly until late in 2003 when the INS decided he had overstayed his welcome and shipped him to Canada to face extradition.
Canada cannot send him to Germany because the crime he has been convicted of there does not exist here. He is being held in jail here while he applies for refugee status. He is being held under the National Security blanket law not because he is a threat to national security but because he may influence people who could be a threat to national security.
I dislike what he stands for and all who follow him but this is a classic example of govt run amoke. How can we hold someone in jail when he has never been convicted of any crime.
Your thoughts please.

He HAS been convicted of a crime, of hate crimes in Germany, yes? And you say he has been brought up on charges of hate crimes in Canada, but then you say he can't be extradited to Germany because the crime he committed in Germany does not exist in Canada. What was his crime?

Did he, by any chance, recently produce a movie about christ?

the hate crime he was convicted of in Germany is not a crime here. In Germany it is a crime to deny the Holocaust and that is the crime he was convicted of. He has several times been charged with hate crimes but has always won his cases.
He has never been convicted of any crime in Canada.

What crimes was he charged with in Canada?

Was Christ a Holocaust denier too?

It really shows the importance of freedom of speech. I think its fucked up to deny that the holocaust ever happened but if someone wants to believe it and spread that message, they should be allowed to.

Re: My best friend's father
 

We don't want him :)

serious:
why was he convicted here? what did he do here in germany?

hey, listen up...

canada probably has an extridition treaty with germany. what this means is, that if germany knows he's in canada and wants him sent back, or if canada knows he's in canada and doesn't want him anymore, then they can lock him up while awaiting extridition. his status is probably the equivelent of someone who's skipped bail.

it doesn't matter if canada considers it a crime, if he's been convicted in another country where there is an extridition treaty, then he's shit out of luck. canada can give him refugee status, but it sounds like they've got no reason to.

question: did he deny it while in germany or did they convict him in absentia saying that as a german citizen his denying it happening out of the country was still illegal?

So basically you have an overbearing government declaring it a crime to deny the abuses of an overbearing government.

That's one of the best examples of irony I've ever seen.

Canada, under intenational law, should ship him to Germany to face the imprisonment he deserves. If a man rapes a woman and then hides in some extreme Taleban-esque country where they dont think it's a crime to rape someone, would you be complaining about it if your government tried to extradite him?

He is a criminal, he has been found guilty by a democratic and just nation, and he belongs in jail, throw away the key... I dont really care that he might treat his family nice and he doesnt hate anyone apart from Jews.

Unlike rape, having thoughts doesn't hurt anybody. Yes they are wrong and misguided, but he's entitled to his beliefs. Socialist/communist regimes have killed more people than the Nazis, yet it's not illegal to be have socialist views. Why the double standard? If you want to prosecute people for sympathizing with groups that committed murder, be consistent about it.

1, there is only so many times I can say "Stalinism is not communism" before I have to think people just deliberately make this up rather than say it through lack of understanding.

2, Denying the holocaust is a crime in Germany because Germans committed the holocaust - hateful thinking and rabid anti semitism indeed have hurt and killed many people in the past - the point of this law is that they should not be allowed to do so again. It was and is very important for Germans to understand and be educated about this part of their history.

3, It is proposterous arrogance for Canada to judge its only legal system more valid than Germany's. We are not talking about sending someone back to a dictatorship tro face torture and trumped up charges, we are talking about charges made by a democratic and legal country... you do not have the right to withold criminals from other countries because you do not agree with their laws... of course, you understand this when America's laws are broken, but when it's someone else, when the victim is someone else who is not like you, perhaps it all seems rather different? I dont know - i cant speak for you, but thats how you make it sound.

This is the first time I've ideologically differed from you Strange Famous, so please consider my point.

I don't agree that one nation should always follow the laws of another nation. For example, we still use the death penalty over here in the states. AFAIK, we are the only Western nation that still does. When we convict people of capital cases, the EU refuses to extradite the criminal. I believe this just recently happened to an accused terrorist--a nation is/was refusing to send him over for trial.

I support their position and think it's a moral course of action. I think the tough pill to swallow is that I have to support our position to not extradite someone back to Germany to be punished for an action we protect (and value)--freedom of speech.

He's been convicted of speaking out on something he thought was right. I don't agree with him, but it's bullshit that he can't express his views. Canada should set him free.

Denying the holocaust won't make it happen again. What's truly preposterous is the fact that Germany has laws restricting speech. The charges are bullshit, the law is bullshit.

Let's hope that if Germany refused to release a member of Al Qeida to American "care", no one who expressed one view regarding this criminal will suddenly change their mind and start saying "oh, this guy is a terrorist, he must be deported to face US justice..."

being part of the international community means respecting the laws of other nations - either you wish to belong inside the community of nations, or you wish to exist outside of it.

If freedom of speech doesn't exist, I'll stay outside, thank you very much.

Chalk this up to one more reason I'm glad to be an American.

Freedom of speech is a uniquely American fetish, trust me.

And as we talked about before, it is a matter of degree, freedom of speech in America isnt total either - ie a man could be prosecuted for yelling "fire" in a movie theatre intentionally to cause people to be hurt.

So no one is free to say whatever they want whatsoever, there is a recognition that speech can be a weapon - it comes down to whether you wish to allow someone to attempt to incite violence and murder, or whether you dont.

The denial of a crime of the degree of Endsolung is hideous, grotesque, I have no sympathy for any person who does this, I dont wish to see them protected in anyway, or harbored from the justice they deserve.

Free speech is intended to mean the free expression of ideas, but these are not ideas, they are lies, they are grotesque, hateful, evil, offensive, harmful and disgusting. In the same way as slander is not allowed, ie - Kerry cant go on TV and say he knows George Bush is a rapist - so should this not be.

^ Oh, so as long as the idea's are something you agree with, then you're just fine with it. :rolleyes:

Perhaps you should take a look at your history books. Free speech needs to be protected, in america, and the rest of the world. In the time of Mcarthy, you would have been arrested SF had you been living in the United States.

Oh so true.

It is my opinion that this man is being held for no reason, and has not commited any crime. Limiting freedom of speech, is the first step towards no freedom of speech at all.

He has committed a crime which the state of Germany defines as a crime, he has committed this crime in Germany, where he is subject to German law.

If you dont think it is a crime, fine, make that point - there's free speech, but it doesnt matter, it has no relevance to the argument about deporting him. The only reason to not deport him is if there is good reasn to believe he will face torture or death in Germany, there is no good reason to believe this.

You are free to disagree with German law as much as you like while this guy sits in jail and serves his sentence.

So very very well said.

Mr Mephisto

nope, I also think it is a very importand right.

But that denying the Holocaust is a crime here is somthing i think is ok. We commited the crime and the fact that some people here that denying that, mostly because they still want to think that Hitler was a good man, makes me really mad.

Canada doesn't extradite people who break laws that Canada doesn't recognize. Hell, I think Canada has in the past refused to extradite someone to a death penalty nation, unless guarantees where made that the death penalty wouldn't be used.

However, it looks like Canada decided that he isn't a Canadian citizen. Probably because he lied on his citizenship application.

So, Canada are supposed to deport him, to the nation which he is a Citizen of, namely Germany. This isn't extraditing him, it is quite different.

Given the fact he is likely to flee rather than return to Germany, he was detained to prevent flight (together with the security problem). Canada doesn't want illegal immigrants who lie about their past wandering around.

At which point, Canada is sending someone to a country where he will be prosecuted for a crime that is not a crime in Canada. Hence the refugee arguement, which may or may not fly.

Inciting hatred against an ethnic group is illegal in Canada. This was probably what he was charged with.

Canada doesn't have an inalienable freedom of speach. In fact, the one completely inalienable Canadian right is the right to vote: most other rights can be taken away in extremis, and others simply by using particular language.

One may note that the ability for the establishment to disenfranchise their opponents was instrumental in Bush becoming president. (error-filled "this person cannot vote" lists where used in Flordia, resulting in a non-trivial number of people who should have been able to vote, even under American law, being refused their rights.)

The war on drugs, together with other crimes, has resulted in a non-trivial percentage of the black underclass of the southern states being unable to vote.
(from http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/conte.../08marable.htm -- I've seen similar numbers elsewhere. Possibly these numbers are wrong, I haven't verified them)

( http://www.drugpolicy.org/statebysta...lerd/index.cfm )
So, high and mighty "America is the land of the free", it is only free if you aren't being targetted by the latest wave of the American Prohibition-fetish.

You might as well just name us ;)

Edit:

My bad, about 77 countries still retain and use the death penalty. I still stand by my statement that I believe we are the only Western nation to do so, however.

I confused the fact that we still execute juveniles against international law (the Democratic Republic of Congo just stopped and, IIRC, only Iran and the US continue; Amnesty International lists 7 nations, but that tabulation is from 1990) with standard adult executions. I find it interesting that, according to AI, China, our cozy trading partner and up-and-coming superpower, leads the world in executions.

could you possibly show us either an example or where in the law it states that? 'cause that doens't make much sense. it would probably violate their treaty. even withholding extradition because they're against the death penatly would probably be against it, but at there's a moral ground to stand on.

/help a brotha out...

You do realize that everything Hitler did to the Jews was legal under German law, right?

you realize in order for it to be legal, hitler had his brown shirts bully voters to get to power, then changed the laws to make it legal? not quite what i would call legitamate.

Here's an example of a case where Canada wouldn't extradite a couple of guys unless the US assured they wouldn't be put to death.

^^^ how about something about them not doing it for something they don't have as a crime (i actually agree with not doing it for the death penalty, sometimes) which actually seems to be the main argument.

If you can justify refusing to send someone back to one's nation-state for murder, then it shouldn't be too problematic to understand the basis for not sending one back for behaviors that aren't even considered criminal.

i'm going to assume you mean me with that. i can't justify not sending someone back for murder. i can justify not sending someone back if they are going to face the death penalty, if they country holding the is against it. i can justify not sending someone to possible death. that's about it.

That is not a true statement.

At all times, murder was forbidden by German law.

what some people don't seem to be getting here is that an extradition treaty is based upon the fact that if you do something illegial in one country, and you go somewhere else, you can be sent back to stand trial for your crime.
this is designed to stop criminals shoving off somewhere else and not being punished.



now, just because a law doesn't exist in your country, doesn't mean that it isn't legitimate. Germany has passed a law saying that you can't deny the holocaust in an attempt to stop various nasty things happening (i won't go into political and legal wranglings).
now, this law is perfectly justifiable in germany, but naturally, canada doesn't have this law because it's never been needed. Why would canada have the right to stop deportation of someone who (for sake of argument) had broken this law?
the sentance isn't extreme, and isn't going to involve anything particually bad beyond the standard fine/minimal jail term. if he was going to be executed, then there would be a case, but simply, canada really doesn't have a good reason not to honour their treaty.
now, they don't want this guy to be buggering off, so they put him in a prison until the time that he can be deported (then you get the beaurocracy and crap, which is generally where the whole thing falls down).

everything is legal, unfortunatly, it's just not undertaken with the greatest of sense or intelligence.

I'm not claiming that laws in one country aren't legitimate if they don't exist in another country, but I might not have made my point clearly.

If you believe in your mind that killing someone is wrong and, subsequently, the death penalty is a punishment that is too extreme or morally wrong, then

a $1 dollar fine for exercising political speech (an inalieable, deity given right) is too extreme a punishment.

I think it's the logical conclusion of the argument that a punishment's extremity is the basis for it's legitimacy.

Especially in this context since people can (and have) argue that freedom of speech is more sacrosanct than life.

uh, someone already pointed out that canada doesn't quite view freedom of speech the otherway around. and no, the punishment doesn't determine the legitimacy. it is legitimate if the people of a nation give it legitamacy, and give a punishment they feel suitable for it. what we think doesn't matter. and unless it's to keep some from being executed or mistreated, you're on shaky ethical ground to ignore a treaty you approved and signed. (not you, smooth, you in the general sense).

My point is that in Kentucky (where the offender was residing before being sent to Canada), punishment in any way, monetarily or corporal, is mistreatment when the offense is exercising one's political voice.

I don't understand how you are drawing a distinction when the offense is murder, which is a more severe offense in all nations, even Germany, than hate speech.

I won't keep hammering this point. I just wanted to make clear my stance on the logical inconsistency between arguing to harbor a murderer because the penalty is too severe (as was the case when Canada refused to send a murderer to the states to face death; similar when Germany refused to send a terrorist suspect to the states to face trial until we promised not to seek death) and arguing that we don't have a similar moral right or obligation to harbor someone when we think the punishment is too severe (as is the case when someone makes political speech, which to our culture, can not be punished or curtailed in any way, shape, or form).

again your missing the point that you are subject to the laws of the land you are in. you get arrested for smoking pot in the states, but go to amsterdam and you get a coffee to drink while smoking it. you honor your treaty to the country the person offended. we may think of freedom of speech being inalienable, but they don't, and he is a fugitive from their law, whether you agree with it or not and based on said treaty, we are duty bound to return him there if we can.

I'm not missing any point.*

If we are duty bound to return someone for punishment, then they are duty bound to return someone to us, even if we are going to put him or her to death.

*earlier in the thread, instead of insulting another member of the forum by suggesting a lack of comprehension, I stated that I might not have explained myself clearly enough and laid my position out more explicitly.

i'm sorry you feel my stating that i think you're missing the point is an insult. it's not. it's an opinion. (edit... i just looked at that post, and i probably could have worded it a bit less antagonistically. sorry).

and as an analogy to reply to your duty bound paragraph, if someone lies to you, that doesn't make it right to lie to them. so if someone else doesn't live up to their end of the bargin (even if it's because they feel the other persons life is at stake), that doesn't make it right for us to not live up to our end.

harry, np.

however, you claimed you supported instances when country's didn't hold up to their end of the bargain in regards to capital punishment based on moral reservations.

so I don't understand how you can support their refusal to abide by an agreement while simultaneously saying we are duty bound to abide by an agreement in spite of our moral reservations?

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.

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.

:eek: I completely agree with you :eek:

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.

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.

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.'

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...

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.

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.

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

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...