Representing Jewish Communities in 100 Countries Across Six Continents
Representing Jewish Communities in 100 Countries Across Six Continents
09 March 2010
A court in the Spanish city of Barcelona has sentenced the neo-Nazi Pedro Varela to two years and nine months in jail and fined him US$ 4,000 for calling for a genocide against Jews and Blacks, and for selling hate literature in his ‘Europa’ bookstore in Barcelona. Varela received a prison sentence of 15 months for propagating genocidal ideas and another 18 months for working to overthrow fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Spanish Constitution.
Prosecutors had asked for a four-year prison term for Varela (pictured above with the British Holocaust denier David Irving). His defense lawyers had argued that Varela belonged to no political party and that there were no banned books in Spain.
The bookstore owner has previously been sentenced to a prison term on similar charges, but avoided going to jail because he had no a criminal record. Varela was the first person to be punished under a 1996 law that made propagating genocide a crime in Spain.
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is true but iran and ahmadinejad must first clean up in front of his door bsecuae iranian government is racist against :- bahai- women- gays- none chiite M. Ahmadinejad is a demogogue (mardom farib) and his speech is for election. I'm just sad that nobody stayed during his speech and told about all victims of IRI. bamdadi: I agree with you. I hope to see real changes inside Iran socio-political system. However remember that some of these issues (such as gays, or women) are not necessarily imposed from top, these are deeply rooted cultural issues inside Iranian society.
As 'Saf' said, there are lacunae in this report. The definitions of 'denial'. 'hatred', 'incitement to genocide' etc are too woolly to satisfy.
Many with minds of their own will wonder why of all the atrocities-- true or alleged by interested parties-- which have defiled the name of humanity in wartime, this is the only one which regularly requires dissentients to be fired, fined, jailed and ostracised from polite, free-speech-loving liberal societies.
Such punitive actions only inflame curiosity and skepticism. They are hollow triumphs for the upholders of the authorized version of the Shoah-- which has been subjected to considerable revision by respectable historians over the years in any case.
The witch-hunters shoud beware. The less reasonable the campaign, the harsher the eventual backlash may be.
First of all, David Irving is NOT a holocaust denier. He disputes the total number killed but still numbers the dead in the millions.
Second, I rather doubt Varela called for genocide for blacks and Jews. This sounds like a gross exaggeration re-phrase by the prosecution. Notice the article did not provide any quotes from the material or additional references, which I find rather odd.
This is just another example of the repeal of fundamental rights in Europe for politically unpopular people who have the gall to speak out.
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