Statement of Principles

Historians Behind Bars is an ad-hoc coalition of historians, writers, and free-speech activists who are working to overturn laws in Europe , Canada , Australia , and New Zealand that make it an imprisonable offense to revise, question, deny, or diminish any aspect of Holocaust history. We also seek to end the extradition of legal immigrants living in the U.S. to Europe in order to stand trial for writing revisionist works. Finally, we seek to counter attempts by those who would make Holocaust “revisionism” illegal in the U.S. (most notably U.S. Congressman John Conyers).

Historians Behind Bars is not a “Holocaust revisionist” organization. One of the founders and co-directors of Historians Behind Bars is a vocal non-revisionist. Historians Behind Bars is open to people of all beliefs, and does not publish or distribute “revisionist” historiography. Historians Behind Bars will never attempt to argue that “revisionists” are correct, because one of the founding principles of this organization is that even if “revisionists” are dead wrong, they still should not be imprisoned.

We believe that an organization specifically dedicated to fighting the imprisonment of Holocaust “revisionists” is necessary. There are many fine organizations the world over that focus on the free speech rights of writers, journalists, and dissidents. However, many of these organizations, including Amnesty International, actually favor imprisoning Holocaust “revisionists.” Amnesty International has, by its own admission, lobbied governments to make Holocaust “revisionist” books, speeches, and Internet postings illegal. Many other free speech organizations remain silent on the question of anti-revisionist laws

We believe that the support for these laws from organizations like Amnesty International and the United Nations represents a battle for the soul of the human rights community. On one side are those who believe that free speech, especially political speech, is a necessary and fundamental right. On the other side are those who believe that free speech should be curbed in order to prevent the spread of certain “offensive” ideas and beliefs.

This tension is best represented in the United Nations' International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which in Article 19 states, “Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference,” and “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.” Article 20, however, proceeds to enumerate a laundry list of exceptions to Article 19.

We at Historians Behind Bars believe that there is no legitimate reason for any government to impose any restrictions on the rights outlined in Article 19. We also believe that the creeping acceptance of free speech restrictions among liberal and progressive organizations is both alarming and counterproductive, especially considering the struggles of many on the left to safeguard their own free speech rights since 9/11. We believe that the only way to safeguard our own free speech rights is to safeguard the rights of those we disagree with.

We strongly hold to the principle so succinctly articulated by famed Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji, imprisoned in Tehran since 2000 for criticizing the Iranian government: “No one should be imprisoned -- not even for a second -- for expressing an opinion.”

We believe that the laws that criminalize Holocaust “revisionism” are harmful to the very people they are supposed to protect. Ostensibly, these laws are supposed to protect Jews from anti-Semitism, but in fact these laws only reinforce age-old anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about how Jews “run the world” and manipulate governments to do their bidding. Recent statements from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and other Muslim politicians, writers, and journalists, attest to the fact that anti-Jewish bigots are having a field day exploiting the West's anti-revisionism laws in order to tar the Jewish community and spread hatred of Jews worldwide.

Anti-revisionist laws don't protect Jews; they put Jews at risk by reinforcing the most dangerous stereotypes of Jews. Far from reducing anti-Semitism, these laws fuel it.

We believe that anti-revisionist laws are disrespectful to the memory of the very people in whose name they are enacted – the victims of the Holocaust. The Jews who were persecuted and killed by the Third Reich were victims of an authoritarian state that censored books and imprisoned authors. To censor books and imprison authors in the name of the victims of the Holocaust is a travesty. Employing fascist methods to honor the innocent victims of fascism is lunacy. Enacting fascistic laws in order to fight fascism is, by definition, self-defeating.

We believe that laws criminalizing dissenting views of Holocaust history make the West appear hypocritical. This became undeniably clear during the controversy surrounding the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper. Almost with one voice, Muslim spokespeople pointed out the hypocrisy of a Europe that defends the cartoons on free-speech grounds, but locks up Holocaust “revisionists” and bans their books. As commentators on the left (such as Robert Fisk) and the right (such as Pat Buchanan), and editors from the Los Angeles Times to the Wall Street Journal have all pointed out, Europe's anti-revisionist laws have severely damaged Europe's reputation as a haven for free speech, and given third-world dictators renewed justification for their own repressive measures. If Western Europe, with its political stability and economic prosperity, still feels a need to imprison authors whose ideas are seen as “dangerous,” why shouldn't less stable and less prosperous areas of the world be able to do the same?

The West cannot preach the gospel of free speech, free inquiry, and the freedom to criticize or question generally accepted beliefs, until it fully adopts those values itself.

We believe the laws that criminalize “revisionist” history are an easy cop-out for European politicians who only want to pay lip service to the task of combating racial and religious intolerance. In France, for example, there has been a steady upsurge in violent crimes targeting Jews – much of it perpetrated by Muslim extremists. The French government claims that it bans Holocaust “revisionism” in order to protect Jews from anti-Semitism, but that claim is questionable in light of the fact that the French government has no problem with the proliferation of conspiracy books claiming that 9/11 was nothing more than a “Jewish hoax” perpetrated by Jews in order to frame innocent Muslims. These books are extremely popular among French Muslims.

By criminalizing Holocaust “revisionism,” the French government can give the appearance of fighting anti-Semitism, without taking any politically risky steps that would offend or anger France 's growing Muslim community.

It's also important to note that anti-revisionist laws are not used against violent skinheads. France (and most other Western European nations) have separate “hate crimes” laws for that. The targets of anti-revisionist laws have primarily been elderly authors, teachers, and politicians who say or write something about Holocaust history that the government finds offensive. In France , that includes people like 93-year-old Catholic priest Abbe Pierre, and 92-year-old Roger Garaudy, former head of the French Communist Party.

Indeed, the French government has found anti-revisionist laws quite useful in eliminating pesky political opponents. It is a crime in France to “diminish” the Holocaust by not giving it the proper emphasis when speaking or writing about it. This ill-defined, subjective statute makes it easy to prosecute someone for the narrowest of reasons. Using this law, the French government has been able to prosecute political foes on the right (anti-immigrant politician Jean-Marie Le Pen), and the left (Ginette Skandrani, co-founder of France 's Green Party).

In 2005, over four-hundred of France's top historians (including many Jewish and Muslim historians) signed the “Freedom for History” petition demanding the repeal of France's anti-revisionist laws. The French government was unmoved.

We believe that anti-revisionist laws are counterproductive. Advocates of anti-revisionist laws claim that these laws are needed in order to keep Holocaust skeptics from having an audience, yet in almost every case in which these laws have been enforced, they have only succeeded in giving the prosecuted “revisionists” a much greater audience than they otherwise would have had. Here are three prime examples:

After twenty years of energetically fighting prosecution and inspiring hundreds of front-page news stories in Canada, 66-year-old Ernst Zundel finally threw in the towel in 2000, fleeing his home in Toronto to live with his American wife in an isolated mountain home in the hills of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. From that point on, Zundel didn't do anything newsworthy or make a single headline… until his arrest and detention by U.S. authorities in 2003, his deportation back to Canada, his subsequent two-year imprisonment in solitary confinement in Toronto, his midnight extradition to Germany, and his current trial in Mannheim. Now, he is back in the news, in a high-profile trial which is serving as a rallying point for hundreds of far-right groups all over Europe.

By 2005, historian David Irving had become a sort of pariah among both “revisionists” and non-revisionists alike. Considered too controversial for any mainstream publishing house, Irving had also alienated many “revisionists” with his ill-conceived and disastrously unsuccessful lawsuit against anti-revisionist author Deborah Lipstadt, during which Irving admitted that he did in fact believe the Nazis gassed Jews during the Holocaust. Having alienated all sides, it's unlikely that David Irving would have ever been able to reach an audience beyond his small but loyal band of supporters… until his arrest and imprisonment in Austria in November 2005. In the three months following his arrest, he became the subject of more mainstream news articles and op-eds than he had in the previous ten years combined.

Chemist Germar Rudolf was an apolitical young doctoral student at the prestigious Max Planck Institute in Germany until, in 1993, he was hired by the defense team of a prosecuted German revisionist to prepare a chemical analysis report for the revisionist's upcoming trial. In retaliation, the German government arrested Rudolf, froze his assets, seized his books and computer, and sentenced him to fourteen months imprisonment. No longer able to finish his degree or find work as a chemist, and facing massive legal expenses for his upcoming trial, Rudolf was forced to rely on sympathetic revisionists to raise money. Rudolf became a full-time revisionist writer, arguably the most qualified scientific professional the revisionist community has. So what good did his prosecution accomplish, other than to drive a young would-be chemist directly into the arms of the aging revisionist community, giving them a new, young, energetic, and academically qualified spokesperson?

We believe that the legal theories being used to prosecute Holocaust revisionists are dangerous, and may have far-reaching implications well beyond their current use. The Germans are prosecuting Ernst Zundel for material he posted on his website while he was a legal resident of the United States. The German government's legal theory is that even though Zundel's writings were lawful in the country in which he was living, the fact that the Internet “brought” Zundel's words into German “territory” therefore gives Germany jurisdiction to imprison Zundel. Amazingly, the governments of the U.S. and Canada have supported Germany's right to imprison Zundel for “speech crimes” that were A) not committed in Germany, and B) not “crimes” in the country in which Zundel was living.

This is an exceptionally dangerous precedent . Many people immigrate to the United States because they want to be able to say and write things that would be illegal in their home countries. In China , it is illegal to criticize the government; in Iran , it is illegal to advocate the legalization of homosexuality; in Saudi Arabia , it is illegal to advocate women's rights. The precedent being set in the Zundel case would give countries like China , Iran , and Saudi Arabia the legal justification to demand the extradition of expatriates who have posted “illegal speech” on the Internet while residing in countries like the U.S. where such speech is not illegal.

The German government is claiming that because the Internet can be accessed by computers in Germany, all Internet users, in all countries, must therefore abide by German law, and anyone who posts something that violates Germany's speech codes can be tried and imprisoned in Germany, even if they've never set foot in that country, and even if what they posted is not a crime in the country in which they reside.

The notion that posting on the Internet makes someone prosecutable under the laws of any country that has Internet access is a frightening, perilous precedent. In a perfect world, Germany 's new legal theory would be the talk of the Internet free-speech community. Sadly, most attempts to discuss the Zundel case dissolve into debates over Zundel's character. Whether Zundel is a hero or a hatemonger is irrelevant. The bigger picture is that in the name of protecting the world from the Internet postings of this one 66-year-old fringe writer, we are supporting a legal precedent that might have untold repercussions for Internet free-speech in the years to come.

On a final note, it should be mentioned that Ernst Zundel faces up to ten years in prison (not counting the three years he's already served: two years in Canada, in solitary confinement in a six-by-ten foot cell, and one year in Germany awaiting trial). Germar Rudolf, currently awaiting sentencing in Germany as well, also faces up to ten years. To put these sentences in context, consider two other cases of German justice. Gunter Parche, the deranged maniac who attempted to murder tennis superstar Monica Seles in 1993 by stabbing her in the back with a ten-inch steak knife, received two years probation (no jail time) from a Hamburg court. And Mounir el-Motassadeq, who was convicted in 2005 for his role in the Al Qaeda “ Hamburg cell” that carried out the 9/11 attacks, received only seven years.

When writers whose only “crimes” are their Internet postings about history, controversial, offensive, or inaccurate though they may be, face more prison time than psychopathic stalkers and a terrorist implicated in the murder of over three-thousand people, something has gone terribly wrong. Even if we accept the argument that laws against Holocaust “revisionism” were created with the best of intentions, they have, like a cancer, metastasized into something unjust and destructive.

Those who despise Holocaust “revisionism” (or Holocaust “denial” as many call it) often refer to it as a “disease.” It is not our intention to argue that point, but merely to state that the supposed “cure” is far worse.