Thursday, April 27, 2006

New Holocaust Denial Trials

From Ha'aretz:

John Gudenus, a former legislator in Austria's upper house of parliament, was sentenced on 26 April 2006 to a suspended one-year prison term for denying aspects of the Holocaust. Gudenus had declared in April 2005, during an Austrian television interview, that the existence of gas chambers in the Third Reich should be "seriously debated." Later he amended his remarks to say that "there were gas chambers, though not in the Third Reich but in Poland." According to Austrian law, Gudenus could have faced up to 10 years in prison for denying the Holocaust had he been found guilty by the eight-member panel of jurors.

Two weeks earlier, on 11 April 2006 Spanish Holocaust denier Pedro Varela was arrested in his bookstore Libreria Europa in central Barcelona and hundreds of books denying or minimizing the Holocaust were seized by the police. After posting bail, Varela was released. He may be subject to 5 years in prison if convicted. On 16 November 1998 Varela was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment, Spain's first conviction for Holocaust denial.

Sources: Ha’aretz, 26 April 2006; rense.com, 16 April 2006; Journal of Historical Review, 1998

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