05 February 2008
The president of the Spanish Jewish community, Jacobo Israel Garzon, has called on Spain’s parliament to punish the denial of the Holocaust with imprisonment. Spanish law had mandated a sentence of up to two years in prison for Holocaust denial but in November Spain's Constitutional Court ruled that it falls within 'freedom of speech' and would no longer be punishable with jail.
The court, however, ruled that imprisonment is a constitutional punishment for any individual convicted of justifying the Holocaust or any other genocide. In a speech at Congress in Madrid on the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israel Garzon urged lawmakers to "think about how to once again introduce prison terms for Holocaust denial in the penal code". Holocaust denial is "the threshold of hate speech" and its "depenalization" could lead to the rise in the distribution of Nazi propoganda, he said.
In the European Union, Holocaust denial is specifically outlawed by law in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland and Romania. In April 2007, the European Union made inciting racism and xenophobia crimes throughout its 27 member states in a decision tempered by caveats to appease free speech concerns.