EU AGREES NEW RACE HATRED LAW: MINISTERS STOP SHORT OF BAN ON HOLOCAUST DENIAL BALTIC STATES DROP CALL TO INCLUDE ‘STALINIST CRIMES’
Ian Black
The Guardian – United Kingdom
Published: Apr 20, 2007
Incitement to racial hatred and xenophobia is to become a crime
across the EU, although the long-fought agreement avoids singling
out Holocaust denial and was watered down after differences between
member states.
Six years of often fractious negotiations ended in Luxembourg
yesterday with a compromise that struggled to balance freedom of
expression with a tough stance on anti-semitism and other forms of
racism and prejudice.
Justice ministers from all 27 EU countries agreed to punish incitement
to hatred or violence against a group or a person that is based on
colour, race, national or ethnic origin, by a sentence of between
one and three years’ jail.
But, disappointing anti-racism campaigners, Jewish groups and Germany,
which holds the EU presidency, the law neither bans Holocaust denial as
such, nor Nazi symbols. "Europe has a special historic responsibility
to combat anti-semitism and it is a shame that the final version did
not include this," said the European Jewish Congress.
Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Spain and several eastern European
countries have laws banning Holocaust denial. These laws will still
apply. Britain, Ireland and the Nordic countries have always resisted
such a law so as not to compromise academic or artistic freedom unless
it specifically incites racial hatred.
There is no reference either to the mass killings of Armenians by the
Ottoman Turks in 1915, which Armenians insist should be recognised
as genocide.
Turkey, a candidate for EU membership, had made clear it would object
strongly to this.
The new EU legislation will need to be ratified by some national
parliaments. It criminalises "publicly condoning, denying or grossly
trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war
crimes . . . when the conduct is carried out in a manner likely to
incite to violence or hatred against a group or [group] member".
British officials insisted the EU provisions would mean no changes
because UK domestic law, including the 2006 Religious and Racial
Hatred Act, was tougher.
The final deal was only completed to the sound of bitter historical
controversy, with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania pressed into dropping
their demand for a reference to "Stalinist crimes" to balance the
attention given the Nazi atrocities.
The EU justice commissioner, Franco Frattini, said the commission had
agreed on public hearings in one of the Baltic states and Slovenia,
on "the horrible crimes of the 20th century". He added: "The fact
that the EU now has moral responsibility and not only on the economy,
is demonstrated by initiatives like this."
Lady Ashton, Britain’s constitutional affairs minister, said the
decision struck the right balance between all the issues.