NP "Mein Kampf" à Bucarest

[Michel Ryckx]

The concept 'négationnisme' denotes the movement that is likely to try to minimize or even deny a
systematic genocide.  It is forbidden by law in France, here in Belgium, in Holland and in other
countries.  Originally it referred to the Holocaust, but is now also used in the context of the
Ruanda genocide some years ago.

At the basis of its forbidding lies the conviction that there is, sometimes,  a limit to free
speech.  Denying or minimizing the Holocaust is tresspassing a boundary which a democracy cannot
allow.

If a prosecutor thinks there's a press delict which he wants to try, he has to follow special
procedures for free speech is guaranteed by the Constitution.  Those procedures were that hard they
were never used (I can't remember a single case).

During the Eighties, France has known two famous incidents: the first when Front National president
Jean-Marie Le Pen (who casted up to 15 percent of the votes) dismissed the Holocaust as 'a detail in
history', which caused an enormous incident all over Europe; and the second one was a professor
Faurisson who published systematically so-called scholarly books which denied the Holocaust.

Two problems there: in the case of Le Pen, his parliamentary immunity; in that of Faurisson the
principle of 'free [scholarly] investigation'.  If the state wanted to prosecute, the outcome was,
to say the least, pretty uncertain.

The solution was, since there was a communis opinio among democrats from the right and the left, in
parliament and among the people, to create a new law which forbade such expressions and made people
expressing them easier to prosecute.

There are similar laws that forbid people to doubt the 'Human Rights Declaration' for that
Declaration is more and more considered to be the ultimate basis for a democratic organisation of
society.

Paul's translation is perfect.

Kind regards,

Michel.