Every other event in history or religion is open to debate without threat of prosecution, and those who do not believe the Holocaust occurred should also be free to express their opinions without fearing they will be jailed for up to 5 years.

By Juan Valdez | May 27, 2009 7:42 AM

Supporters of free speech will support decriminalized every issue. Then how can we than draw the line to hatred ,discrimination,etc statements

By kwabena | May 27, 2009 9:39 AM

Freedom of speech should have limits when one starts denying facts that not only happened, but happened “next door” to the Netherlands. Making this a non crime will empower neo nazis and haters in the Netherlands. It will increase hatred and intolerance and will bring harm to Dutch citizens and to Dutch society. It should absolutely be a crime to make it permissible for people to deny that millions of Jews, Catholics, Homosexuals and others were murdered in cold blood. It’s a huge slap in the face to survivors and the many Dutch citizens who hid and saved innocent people. When you allow people to start denying the Holocaust you’re asking for history to repeat itself as the holocaust will now be watered down. Where are the protests from the Gay community? So let me get this straight….Geert Wilders is being prosecuted for hate speech and denying the biggest crime against humanity in recent history is just fine? If this can be considered permissible under freedom of speech than I can not see the reasons Geert Wilders can not say what he wants, when he wants to say, and…whatever he wants to say. Liberals are a paragon of hypocrisy, and Mark Rutte should be prosecuted for potentially doing way more damage than Geert Wilders. You can’t have it both ways.

By Brock Davis | May 27, 2009 10:06 AM

The searching question which deliberately or never gets asked in Europe or Scandinavia is, what happens to these national Europeans and Scandinavians who are legally and technically classified as Caucasian foreigners, immigrants and refugees and who have settled outside their fore-parents natural countries of origin over historical decades (i.e. through imperial economic colonies or ex-colonies in North & South Americas, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Africa, Arabia, Indian ocean and Pacific regions etc, well practically the rest of the whole world) ? It’s a historical fact that, there are relatively more descendent Caucasian foreigners, immigrants and refugees living outside than within the national boundaries of Europe and Scandinavia, well the ‘quip pro quo’ question is, are these national Caucasian European and Scandinavians willing to repatriate their own kind, back to their fore-parents natural countries of origin ?
There is an appropriate sad story to summarize this type of end-game scenario, and it goes, They came for the Christians, and I did not do any thing because I was not a Christian, then they came for the indigenous Asians, Africans, Arabs, Aborigines and Ameri-Indians, and I did not do any thing because I was not an Asian or an African or an Arab or an Aborigine or an Ameri-indian, then they came for the Jews, and I did not do any thing because I was not a Jew, and then they came for the Muslims, and I did not do any thing because I was not a Muslim, and then they came for me, and there was nobody left to protect me, and my family story ended with me. I rest my case.

By Small Brother | May 27, 2009 10:15 AM

"Making this a non crime will empower neo nazis and haters in the Netherlands. It will increase hatred and intolerance and will bring harm to Dutch citizens and to Dutch society."

How exaclty these things link together? If i deny there ever was Napoleon Bonaparte or that Africa was once formed a single landmass with South America, does it slap anyone too?

By Jimbo | May 27, 2009 11:29 AM

I agree with Brock Davis and other comments before in regards to where is the limit to be set, it comes down for me that organised views have to have clear limits between what is freedom of speech and then freedom to abuse that where it turns to "organised hate". Additionaly, if it comes from those in public office or in the political arena, it should even be more clear and punishable if abused.

As for Small Brother's comments - you have put that in a number of posts, again in an area that has no relevance to the article - though it is an interesting issue, keep it to immigration topics or it could well constitute SPAM.

By Solkhar | May 27, 2009 11:48 AM

Those who distort history to cover crimes are as guilty or more that the perpetrators of the crime. Distorting history is how the human race has been controlled. Either by religion, race or some other silly means of discrimination is how the world keep going to war and the war machine makes money. MANY people made money off WWII either from making the machine or stealing/looting. The truth is to hard for some but what I see as interesting is... most Holocaust deniers are anti-Semites? As one listens to Americans and "free speech" try to say "bomb" in a courthouse or "fire" in a theater? History WILL raise its ugly head, for those to stupid or ignorant to accept the truth. Juan, I thought you should be picking coffee?

By Paul Martin | May 27, 2009 11:52 AM

The question is not whether those that deny holocaust should be prosecuted or not. The question is why is this happening only with holocaust? The fact for example of denial of Armenian Genocide by Turkey in the beginning of the centry why is not prosecuted?

By kos | May 27, 2009 11:59 AM

This gesture is a farce. If the 'law' against Holocaust denial was truly enforced, wouldn't thousands of Muslims be in jail?

By anon | May 27, 2009 2:49 PM

i am VERY liberal and i think this should be a crime as its usually 99.9% of the time neo nazis so we will lose one option of arresting them now, not good. freedom of spech does not mean freedom to be a (censored)!!!

By adhd | May 27, 2009 5:02 PM

unless im mixing up my parties, this isnt good it wll open up support for the current ultra christian part to keep power and lose support for the liberals, what are you thinking about mr Rutte

By adhd | May 27, 2009 5:04 PM

Kos, very good point, but it shows firstly that as the famous saying goes .... history is written by the winners of war and the Turks won that battle, but now the point is that this theory was great centuries ago and facts come out. It was easy the defeat of Nazi Germany to have and acknowledge the facts and how terrible it was, but Turkey having won their war against Armenia and the totallitarian governments that ran the place continued and now they still have to face up to that track. They will have that hovering above their collective necks allways until they deal with it.

By Solkhar | May 27, 2009 5:19 PM

When truth is defined by government decree, and dissent is punished, then science degenerates into religion, critical thought becomes heresy, and the world is on its way to becoming the flat centre of the universe again.

By otropogo | May 27, 2009 5:22 PM

Denying the holocaust should not be a crime. When one openly denies the Holocaust, the person only shows his or her stupidity. As to Mr. Wilders and his speech against the threat of Islam, he should not be charged with a crime. He is doing exactly what anybody should do when there is a potential threat in his or her community and that is speak out before it is too late. The crimes committed around the world by people who profess their crimes in the name of Islam is a Modus Oprandi and people need to take heed and react accordingly. Making a verbal statement about the Holocaust or the crimes committed in the name of Islam should not be criminal.

By Hiram | May 27, 2009 6:30 PM

Anybody here knows how many people in this moment are suffering years in jail because they don't believe in the holocaust of the Jews? About 17 people - at least - mostly in Germany. Is this democracy?

By Jakub Crastich | May 27, 2009 7:19 PM

The historical "facts" as most people know them arise from the 1945-46 Nuremberg trial, a largely Soviet-inspired trial based largely on Soviet evidence. The Soviet Union is gone, dead and thoroughly discredited but Nuremberg "facts" live on: it's time to open the dossier and establish just what was proved at that trial, then hold an honest debate. For this a certain minimum of freedom will be needed, yes.

By Nichols | May 27, 2009 8:29 PM

If some people have read or heard another story about what took place in WWII (or any other war etc), and feel like sharing their oppinions - Why don't you just let 'em? you shouldn't be so scared cause there's nothing to hide, right? Just by having this law makes me wonder..

By S. Moove | May 27, 2009 9:35 PM

Wow! It is not against the law to deny the holocaust but against the law to insult Islam? While I don't agree with holocaust deniers or Islam haters neither should be against the law. We all have views that will offend someone someplace. Without free speech our mouths and minds are closed. Unless someone is calling for violence, subjugation or eliciting panic let them speak their minds. Anti-free speech is anti-knowledge. Let freedom ring!

By Don | May 28, 2009 3:05 AM

It is clear that those who want to make denial of the holocaust a crime is because they have something to hide. To deny any other massacre in the past is fine, just this one is not. Israel's very existence is based upon the magic number 6 million. Should anyone discover that the numbers are wrong, that the records of the Red Cross and Russian army show a number less than 6 million, Israels right to exist comes into question, and that must be avoided by all and any means. Ergo, holocaust denial must remain a crime. Please look up the plaque at the entrance of Auschwitz, it first said 4 million people killed, now the numbers are adjusted after more research is done to 1,5 million. What happened to the 2,5 million, are they the denied part of the 6 m?

By Alexander Baldal | May 28, 2009 3:41 AM

Always having voted for the VVD I strongly doubt whether I shall do this again. The approach of Rutte gives card blanche to the president of Iran and the Bishop of the Roman Catholic church to say whatever they want. Not everybody sees them as stupid but millions accept their words as the real truth!
Mike

By Mike | May 28, 2009 8:29 AM

An established fact like the holocaust can be discussed and should not be debated or even questioned. A view which denies the holocaust is denying plain truth. This either comes from ignorance or arrogance. To be ignorant or arrogant is not a crime but is certainly foolish of those who refuse to accept the truth.

By Jakc | May 28, 2009 9:21 AM

There are reasonable limitations to Freedom of human expression and behavior which are dictated not only by superficial national and international laws or symbolic publicity court cases, but in real life by common sense, reasonable human logic and mutual respect for individual communities in any civilized society. What is worrying about this trend for exercising freestyle wholesale freedom of expression and behavior at any human cost and risk to offend or incite racial hatred (and with the privileges of immunity against public prosecution offered by the national state to government officials), is that real life historic tragic events from other international communities, in a fairly democratic country are being recreated into marketing entertainment gimmicks so as to provoke a debate by devil’s advocate, draw attention to the person in question and promote their public popularity, at the expense of victims and their remaining relatives who are forced to relive the same tragic events once again, but this time as part of public marketing entertainment. This shows and naturally goes to prove once again that, the Dutch community are in the process of continuously experimenting with the international communities and boundaries of damage limitation exercises, and after committing the provocation against established status quo values, and are most likely in their defense to simply say, sorry we did not mean to offend. Well one thing is for sure, which is that beyond the convenient token gestures of marketing and promoting a user-friendly and tolerant business society, the Dutch community is trying very hard to isolate itself from the international communities in their own society (a state within a state, i.e. South-Africanization) so as to recreate an institutional and cultural apartheid, once again at home-base.

By Small Brother | May 28, 2009 10:09 AM

In a truly "FREE" society how can questioning ANYTHING be legitimately 'criminalized'? If there is NOTHING fictionalized then NOTHING will be exposed with thoughtful discussion and analysis. This 'criminalization' DEGRADES those who did perish under the Nazis. Considering that the largest concentration camp in the world (Gaza) is today under the management of some suvivors of the nazi shoah it seems an ironic hypocrisy to say the least to imprison questioners. Perhaps all this will be as moot an issue as Galileo's "heresy" challenging those will power in his day. Didn't the mighty church itself apologize for his imprisonment?

By Miriam | May 28, 2009 7:32 PM

From what I can see, just about every ethnic group has done horrible things to some other group in the course of history, so no one should get too uptight by totally free inquiry into history. E.g., the slaughter of many millions of Russians and Ukrainians seems to have been conducted by Bolsheviks who were made up disproportionately of Jews. Why is that holocaust not frequently discussed in public? Why is there not an English translation of Sozhenitsyn's "200 Years Together"??Is that not a form of "holocaust denial"? What constitutes "knowledge" is a tricky matter, but truth can best be achieved, IMHO, by a totally free and open system in which students are taught to think for themselves and be ready to question any ethny's self-justifications and apologetics. Credibility and reputation for honesty are hard to earn and only accountability can promote them. Hence "reluctant" testimony is often the most credible.

By antoine | May 30, 2009 10:19 PM

Everything has a limit and we all know it!! We all know the term 'Democracy need to protect itself' - which means that in the name of protecting democracy there are laws and certain things are not allowed. We don't say, 'democracy will win we don't need to worry', we don't say 'people who try to risk democracy are stupid anyway; therefore we should not punish them'. There are laws to protect democracy and people are punished when trying to risk democracy. So it is ok to have some restrictions on freedom of speech.
We should expand the law saying ‘no massacre should be denied’ - and I really believe no massacre should be denied!!
People think that by making it a law (i.e. denying holocaust is crime), you protect the Jews. This is not the point at all!! Something terrible happened in WWII, something the world should be ashamed of and we should learn from it. The lesson is NOT 'we should not have another Jews massacre' the lesson is 'ANY MASACRE IS FORBIDEN'. In order to make sure massacre DOES NOT happen again we should acknowledge it happened and learn from it. We all know Hitler had much greater plans, he started with killing all Jews but we all know he would not have stop there. Even if you don’t care about Jews. Can one guaranty to me that a person that kills all Jews will stop there? And this is the real risk!! Stop looking at it as a Jews only problem, because it is not!! It is a global hatred spread problem. People that deny the Jews holocaust, has much greater plans (the Jews are just the beginning).

By catwalk | June 2, 2009 9:36 PM